Table traits : with something on them

ALBERT R. MANN
LIBRARY

New York State Colleges

OF

Agriculture and Home Economics

AT

Cornell University

The original of tliis book is in
tlie Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

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TABLE TRAITS

SOMETHING ON THEM.

DE., DOKAN.

■ Je suis aujouid'hui en train de conter ; plaise 4 Dieu que cela i
soit pas une calamity publique." — Brillat Savarin.

hcan!) €bJtioK.

LONDON :
KICHARD BBNTL'BY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET ;

OLIVER & BOYD, EDINBURGH; HODGES & SMITH, DUBLIN;

AN1> TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS, AND AT TJIE RAILWAY STATIONS.

1854.

214520

lOHDOS :
B.CIAT, PBIHraB, =»»*» STREET H'"''''

TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

HENRY, EARL OF HAREWOOD,

IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF BY-GONE

HAPPY YEARS,

THIS VOLUME IS INSCHrBED
BY

THE AUTHOR.

BILL OF FARE.

PAGE

The Legend of Amphitryon — a, Prologue J

Diet and Digestion °

Water J*

Breakfast 26

Materials for Breakfast 31

Com, Bread, &c 36

Tea ^8

Coffee ey

Chocolate 64

The Old Coffee Houses 67

The French Cafgs 80

The Ancient Cook and his Art 86

The Modern Cook and his Science 9^

Pen and Ink Sketch of CarSme H*

Dinner Traits 123

The Materials for Dining ; . . . . 136

A Light Dinner for Two 169

Sauces 190

The Parasite 219

Table Traits of Utopia and the Golden Age 230

Table Traits of England in the Early Times 244

Table Traits of the Last Century 260

Wine and Water 282

The Birth of the Vine, and what has come of it 287

The Making and Marring of Wine 303

Imperial Drinkers and Incidents in Germany 312

An Incident of Travel 313

A few odd Glasses of Wine 324

The Tables of the Ancient and Modern Egyptians 341

The Diet of Saints of Old 353

The Bridal and Banquet of Perques ........ 372

The Support of Modern Saints 377

The Csesars at Table 394

Their Majesties at Meat 412

English Kings at their Tables 442

Strange Banquets 467

The Castellan Von Coney 473

Authors and their Dietetics 487

The Liquor-loving Laureates 508

Supper 513

TABLE TEAITS

WITH SOMETHING ON THEM.

THE LEGEND OF AMPHITRYON.

A PEOLOGUE.

"Le veritable Amphitryon eat V Amj^hitryon o4 Von <fj»e."^MoLiEEE.

Amokg well-worn illustrations and similes, there are
few that have been more hardly worked than the above
line of Poquelin-Moliere. It is a line which tells us
pleasantly enough, that he who sits at the head of a
table is among those '' respectable " powers who find an
alacrity of worship at the hands of man. I say, " at the
hands ;" for what is "adoration" but the act of putting
the hand to the mouth (as expressed by its components
ad and os, oris) ? and what worship is so common as that
which takes this form, especially when the Amphitryon
is amiable, and his altar weU supplied ?

But such a solution of the question affords us, after
all, no enlightenment as to the mystery of the reality or
Amphitryon himself, whose name is now worn, and some-
times Tisurped, by those who preside at modern banquets.

2 TABLE TSAIT3.

"Was he real ? is he a myth ? was he ever in the body ?
or is his name that of a shadow only, employed for
purposes of significance ? If real, whence came he ?
What does classic story say of the abused husband of
Alcmena ?

Amphitryon was a Theban gentleman, who had two
nephews, fast young men, who were slain by the Tele-
boans. This is a myth. They were extravagant iudi-
viduals, of the class of those who count the chimes at
midnight. Their father could not help them ; and so the
uncle, a bachelor, was expected to do his avuncular office,
spend his substance for the benefit of bis brother's chil-
dren, and get small thanks for his trouble. His brother,
however, had an article of small value, — a daughter,
named Alcmena ; and this lady was given in marriage to
her uncle, without any scruple about the laws of affinity.
As soon as the ceremony of the betrothal was over,
Amphitryon departed to punish the Teleboans ; and he
had not been long absent, when Jupiter presented him-
self in the likeness of the absent husband, set up a
household with the readily-convinced Alcmena, and became
the father of Hercules. When Amphitryon returned,
his surprise was natural, and his ill-temper not to be
wondered at. But Jupiter explained the imbroglio in a
very cavalier way, as was his custom, and which they
who are curious may see in the liveliest' of the lively
comedies of the miller's man, Plautus.

An incident connected with the story shows us that
Amphitryon, fond of good living generally, and of beef
in particular, made a razzia among the Teleboan herds,
and brought back all the cows and oxen he found amongst
them. He was exhibiting the cattle to his brother
Electryon, when one of the animals strayed from the
herd ; and Amphitryon, in order to bring it back, flung
a stick at it, but with such violence, that the weapon,

THE LEGENT) OE AMPHITETOIT. 3

falling on the hovns, rebounded as violently upon
Eleetryon, who died upon the spot. But this, too, is
a myth ; and I have no doubt but that Eleetryon died
of indigestion; for the Teleboan beef was famous for
its toughness. Indeed, many of the Teleboes them-
selves were so disgusted with it, that they -abandoned
their ^toli^ homes, and settled in the island of
CapresB.

The Egyptians claim Amphitryon for their own. They
boast that his dinners at Memphis were divine, and that
Hercules, his son, was among the last-born of the gods ;
for Hercules was more than a hero among the leek-
worshippers of Egypt. But the truth is, that the story
of Amphitryon, his strength, his good fare, and his hard
fate, belongs to a more distant period and land. It is a
Hindoo story, the actors are children of the sun, and
Voltaire declares that the tale is to be found in Dow's
" Hindostan ;" but that is as much of a fable as the legend
itself of Amphitryon, whose name, by the way, may be
as easily "Indicized" as that of Pythagoras.

In Scotland, the crime of child-stealing is distinguished
by the title of "plagiary ;" and an instance of the latter
is here before us. When Plautus sat in his master's
mill, and thought over the subject of his lively (Comedy,
founded on the story of Amphitryon, he took for granted
all that he had been told of his hero's birth and parentage.
But the classical Amphitryon is, as I have said, but a
stolen child. His home is in the far East ; and his his-
tory was calling up smiles upon the faces of hsteners by
the Indus long before the twiu founders of Eome had
been intrusted, by their nurse Lupa, to walk alone. The
Hindoo Amphitryon was a fellow of some renown, and
here is his story.

A Hindoo, whose name, indeed, has not descended to
us, — ^but he was the individual whom the Greeks stole,
B 2

4 TABLE TEAITS.

and called Amphitryon, — ^Uved many years ago. He was
remarkable for his gigantic strength and stature ; and he
not only found the former a good thing to possess, but
he used it like a giant. He had for the wife of his
bosom a fair, but fragile, girl, who lay in his embrace, as
she sang to him at sunset, "like Hebe in Hercules'
arms." It was not often, however, that such passages of
pea,ce embellished the course of their daily life. The
Hindoo was jealous, and his little wife was coquettish.
The lady had smiles for flatterers ; and her monster of a
husband had a stick, which showered blows upon her
when he detected her neglecting her household work.
Cudgelling took its turn with caressing, as it did in the
more modern, and consequently more vulgar, case of
Captain Wattle and Miss Roe ; and finally there was
much more of the first than there was of the last. One
summer eve, the husband, in a fit of frantic jealousy,
assaulted his wife so ferociously, that he left her insen-
sible on the threshold of their house, and threatened
never again to keep up a manage with so incorrigible a
partner.

A Hindoo deity, of an inferior order, — not the King of
gods and men, as in the Grecian . legend, — had witnessed
the whole proceeding from his abiding place in a neigh-
bouring cloud. He smiled as the husband disappeared ;
and, gradually descending in his little palace to the
ground, he lightly leaped on to the firm set earth, gave
a hurried glance at the unconscious and thickly-bruised
beauty, and then, in testimony of his ecstatic delight, he
clapped his hands, and commenced revolving on one leg,
as D'Egville used to do, when Venua's violin led the
orchestra, and gave him strength.

The spirit, having subsided into repose, thought for
a whUe, and speedily arrived at a resolution. It infused
itself into a human body, which was found without diEEL-

THE liaEND OF AMPHITETOIT. 5

culty, and it clothed the whole under the counterfeit
presentment of the errant hushand. These feats of trans-
mutation were common among the eastern deities ; and I
take for granted that my readers are aware that Pytha-
goras himself — ^who is connected with Table Traits, on the
subject of beans — was no other than Buddha Goroos, who
slipped into a vacant body, and taught the metempsychosis
to wondering Europe.

The wile of the Hindoo giant was something astonished,
on recovering herself, to find that she was seated, without
any sense of pain, on a bench in the little garden, with
her apparent husband at her feet, pouring out protesta-
tions of love and assurances of fidelity. She accepted all,
without questioning ; for it was all too pleasant to be
refused. A new life commenced. The married pair
became the admiring theme of the village ; and when a
son was bom to them, there ensued such showers of
felicitations and flowers as had never fallen upon married
lovers since the Hindoo world first started on its career,
on the back of the self-supporting elephant. Their moon
never ceased to shed honey; and this was flowing,
sweetly and copiously as ever, when, one sultry noon, the
vagrant husband returned home, and, confronting the
counterfeit at an inner door, bitterly satirized the vanity
of women who indulged in capricious tempers and Psyche
glasses. In an instant, however, he was conscious that
his other self was not a reflection, but only the cause of
many that began crowding into the brain of the true
man. The cool complacency of the counterfeit irritated
the bewildered and legitimate husband, and an affiray
ensued, in which the mortal got all the blows, and his
rival all the advantage. The wife was herself perplexed,
but manifested a leaning towards the irresistible divinity.
In vain did the gigantic original roar forth the tale of his
wrongs, and claim his undoubted rights ; and it waa only

G TAEM TEAITS.

during a lull in the storm that he heeded a suggee*
tion made, to the effect, that all the parties should
submit their case to the judgment of an inspired
Brahmin.

This eminent individual speedily perceived that, of the
double-man that stood before him, one was a dupe, and
the other a deity, — something, at all events, above
humanity. The question was, how to discover the
divinity. After much cogitation, this was the judgment
pronounced by the dusky Solomon: "Madam," said he
to the perplexed lady, " your husband was known as being
the most robust man ever made out of the red earth, of
which was composed the father of us all. Now, let these
two litigants salute you on the lips ; and we pronounce
him to be the true man who comes off with the loudest
report." The trial took place forthwith in presence of the
assembled multitude. The Indian mortal first approached
the up-raised lips of his wife ; and he performed the
required feat with an echo that was as half a hmidred
culverins to the "pistol-shot" kiss recorded of Petruchio.
The Judge and the people looked curiously to the defend-
ant, as wondering how, on the pretty instrument before
him, he could strike a note higher than his rival. The
Indian god addressed him to what seemed a rose-bud wet
with dew ; and therewith ensued a sound as though all
the artillery of the skies were saluting, too, in honour of
the achievement. The multitude and the Brahmia
looked, for aU. the world, as if they had lost their hear-
ing ; and it was calculated that the astounding din might
have been heard by the slumbering tortoise below the
antipodes. At length, the assembly hailed the deity as
the undoubted Simon Pure, and looked towards the Brah-
min for confirmation of their award; but the Brahmin
merely remarked to them, with urbanity, that they were
the sons and fathers of asses, and were unablo to distin-

THE lEGEND OF AMPHITETON'. 7

guish between the almost invisible seed wbieb diets the
bird of Pai'adise, and the gigantic palm ,of the garden of
the gods, each leaf of which is of such extent that an
earthly courser, at his utmost speed, could not traverse it
in fifty millions of mortal-measOTcd years. " Here is the
true husband," added the Judge, putting his hand upon
the shoulder of the Indian, " who has done all that human
being, in the particular vocation required, could do ; and
here," added he, turning reverentially to the other, "is
some supreme being, who has been pleased to amuse
himself at the expense of his servants."

The god smUed, and confessed to the excellence of the
Judge's perspicuity by revealing himself in his true, and
somewhat operatic, form. He ascended the cloud, which
appeared in waiting for him like an aerial cab, and, loot-
ing from over its side, laughingly bade the edified multi-
tude farewell, adding, that he was the deity appointed to
preside at tables that were not ungraced by the fair ; — and,
"if these have a cause for complaint, it is my privilege
to avenge them according to my good pleasure." The
ladies thereupon flung flowers to him as he rose, and the
husbands saluted his departure with rather faint cheers ;
but throughout India, while orthodoxy lasted, there never
was a table spread, but the master thereat, prince or pea-
sant, invoked the Hindoo deity to cast the beams of the
sun of his gaiety upon the board. Heresy, however, in
this matter, has crept in ; and, if Hindoo feasts lack real
brilliancy, it is because the sunlight of the god no longer
bfems from the eyes of the fair, who are no longer pre-
sent sharers in the banquet. It is otherwise in Europe,
whither, perhaps, the god came, and aped Jupiter, as well
as Amphitryon, when he perplexed the household of
Alcmeua. He sits presiding at our feast, ensconced within
a rose; from thence bis smiles urge to enjoyment, and
the finger on his lip to discretion; and every docile

8 TASIE TEAITS.

guest wliispers sub rosa, and acknowledges the present
god.

It is said, in India, that this divinity was the one who
gave men diet, but forgot digestion. It was like giving
them philosophical lectures, without power to understand
them ; and the ease is stiU common enough upon earth.
These subjects demand brief notice, were it only by way
of appendis to this prolegomeuical chapter.

DIET AND DIGESTION.

" No digest of law 's like the law of digestion." — MooEE.

Otjb good neigh'bours the French, or rather, the philo-
sophers among them, have asserted that the perfecting
of man and his species depends upon attention to diet
and digestion ; and, in a material point of view, they are
not far wrong ; and, indeed, in a non-material point of
view, it may he said that the spirit, without judgment, is
very likely to he exposed to indigestion; and perhaps
ignorance complete is to be preferred to an ill-digested
erudition. With diet and patience, Walpole thought all
the diseases of man might be easily cured. Montesquieu,
on the other hand, held that health purchased by rigo-
rously watching over diet, was but a tedious disease. But
Walpole was nearly correct, while Montesquieu was not
very distant from the truth. Dieting, like other things,
must be vindertaken on common-sense principles ; for,
though there be multitudes of mad people in the world,
society generally is not to be put upon the regime of
"Bedlam."

We live, not by what we eat, but by what we digest ;
and what one man may digest, another would die of
attempting. Rules on this subject are almost useless.
Each man may soon learn the powers of his stomach, in
health or disease, in this respect ; and this ascertained, he
has no more business to bring on indigestion than he has
to get intoxicated or fall into debt. He who offends on

10 TABLE TBAITS,

these three points, deserves to forfeit stomach, head, and
his electoral franchise !

Generally speaking, fat and spices resist the digestive
power ; and too much nutritions food is the next evil to
too little. Good cookery, hy developing flavour, increases
the nutritiousness of food, which had cookery would per-
haps render indigestible. Hence a good cook rises to the
dignity of " artist." He may rank with the chemists, if
not with the physicians.

Animal food, of mild quality, is more digestible than
vegetable, and fresh meats are preferable to salted. In
the latter the salt is a different composition from that
which is taken at meals, and which is indispensable to
health. Pish fills rather than feeds ; but there are excep-
tions to this. Vegetables are accounted as doing little to
maintain stamina ; but there have been races and classes
of men who have been heroes upon bread, fruit, and vege-
tables. The poor cannot live upon "curry," it is true;
but in England, with less drink and more vegetable food,
they would be an improved race. Not that they could
live like a Lazzaroni on maccaroni and the open air.
Layard says the Bedouin owes his health and strength to
his spare diet. But even a Bedouin swallows lumps of
butter tOl he becomes bilious ; and were he to live in
England instead of the desert, he would not keep up his
strength by living on the dishes which support him in
Arabia Felix. The golden rule is " moderation and regu-
larity." He who transgresses the rule, will pay for it by
present suffering and a " check" after Christmas.

A false hunger ought not to be soothed, nor a false
thirst to be satisfied ; for satisfaction here is only adding
fuel to a fire that would otherwise go out. On the other
hand, the bilious and sedentary man need not be afraid of
beer ; it is a better stomachic than wine. For him, and
for all lords of that heritage of woe, a weak stomach, the

DIET AND DIGESTION. 11

common-sense system of cookery, as it is called, is most
required. It is something between the hard crude system
of the English, and the juice-extracting method of the
French; with a leaning, however, towards the latter,
(with whom it is common to reduce food to a condition
of pulp,) hut imiting with it so much of the English
custom as allows the gelatinous matter to he retained,
especially in the meats. " Ihstina lente," is "Latin de
cuisine" for "Eat slowly," and it is of first-rate value. He
who does so, gives best chance for healthy chyle ; and
that wanting, I should like to know where the post-pran-
dial enjoyment would he. Without it, digestion is not ;
and when digestion is away. Death is always peering
about to profit by his absence. "See to it!" as the
Chinese " chop" says.

There are upwards of seventeen himdred works extant
on the subject of diet and digestion. Sufferers may study
the question till they are driven mad by doubt and dys-
pepsia, and difference of opinions among the doctors.
Fordyce saw no use in the saliva, and Paris maintains
that without it digestion is not. " Quot homines, tot sen-
tenticB," is as applicable here as in every other vexed ques-
tion. But Paris's book on Diet is the safest guide I
know for a man who, being dyspeptic, wants to cure him-
self, or simply to discover the defiuement of his degree of
suffering. On the other hand, every man may find com-
fort in the reflection, that with early hotirs, abundant
exercise, generous diet, but not too much of it, and occu-
pation,— ^without which a worse devil than the former
enters on possession of the victim, — dyspepsia cannot
assume a chronic form. It may be a casual visitor, but
it wUl be the easiest thing possible to get rid of him.
But philosophy has said as much from the beginning,
and yet dyspepsia prevails and physicians ride in car-
riages. Exactly! and why? Because philosophers them'

12 TABLE TUAITS.

selves, like the Stoic gentleman in Marmontel, after prais-
ing simplicity of living, sink to sleep, on heavy suppers
and beds of down, with the suicidal remark, that " Le
iMxe est unejolie chose"

We must neither act unreservedly on the dictum of
books, nor copy slavishly the examples of others, if we
would have the digestion in a healthy condition. There
is a self-moilitor that may safely be consulted. Of his
existence there can be no doubt ; for every man who wakes
with a head-ache most ungratefully blames that same
monitory "self."

If any class may fairly complain of others in this
respect, rather than of themselves, it is the "babies."
The Kajpoots do not slay half so many of their infants
out of pride, as we do by indiscreet dieting ; or, to speak
plainly, over-feeding. The- New Zealand mother is not
more foolish, who thrusts stones down the throat of her
babe, in order to make him a stem and fearless warrior,
and only mars him for a healthy man. And Christian
matrons have been quite as savage without intending it.
Brantome's uncle, Chastargnerage, was no sooner weaned
than, by the advice of a Neapolitan physician, he took
gold, steel, and iron, (in powders,) mixed up with aU he
ate and drank. This regimen he followed until he was
twelve years old, by which time (we are asked to believe)
it had so strengthened him that he could stop a wild bull
in full course. This diet, however, seems little likely to
have produced such an effect. As soon might one expect
that the Bolton ass, which chewed tobacco and took snuff,
was made swift as a race-horse by so doing. I think that
it is of Dean Nowell it is said, that he grew strong by
drinking ale. He was the accidental inventor of bottled
ale. He was out fishing with a bottle of the freshly-
drawn beverage at his side, when intelligence reached
him touching the peril his life was in, under Mary, which

DIET AND BIGESTIOir. 13

made him fly, after flinging away liis rod, and tlmisting
his bottle of ale -under the grass. When he could again
«afely resort to the same spot, he looked for his hottle,
which, on being disturbed, drove out the cork like a
peUet from a gun, and contained so creamy a fluid, that
the Dean, noting the fact, and rejoicing therein, took care
to be well provided with the same thenceforward. As
Henry II. was the first King who acted as sewer, and
placed the boar's'head on the table of his young son, just
crowned, so Dean NoweU was the first church dignitary
who laid the foundation of red noses, by bringing bottled
ale to the notice of the clergy. There is an old tradition,
that what this ale used to do for churchmen, cider used
to effect for Africans.

As we have said, " moderation" is the first principle of
digestion ; and as, according to the Latin proverb, " water
gives moderation," it behoves us to look for a few minutes
into the much praised, and little appreciated, aqua pura.

¥ATER.

A Kenttickt man, who was lately at one of the great
tahles in an hotel in the States, where the bill of fare was
in French, after sorely puzzling himself with descriptions
which he could not comprehend, " cotelettes a la Main-
tenon" and " ceufs a la braise;'" exclaimed, " I shall go
hack to first principles: give me some roast beef!" So,
after speaking of the birth of him, whose putative father
has lent a name to liberal hosts, let us also fall back upon
first principles, and contemplate the uses of water.

There is nothing in nature more useful ; but, commonly
speaking, you can neither buy any thing with it, nor get
any article for it in exchange. Adam Smith strikingly
compares with it the uselessness and the value of a
diamond: the latter has scarcely any value in use, but
much that is valuable may be had in exchange for it. In
the desert a cup full of water is worth one full of diamonds ;
that is, in certain emergencies. The diamond and the
water illustrate the difierence between value in use and
value in exchange.

If water be not, according to Pindar and the legend
over the Bath Pump-Room, the best of things, few things
would attain to excellence without it. Greek philosophy
was not wrong which made it the principle of life, and
the popular belief scarcely erred in seeing in every stream,
spring, and fountain a resident deity. Water was so
reverenced by certain ancient nations, that they would

WATER. 15

never desecrate it by purifying themselves therewith!
The ancient Persians and Cappadocians exemplified their
devotion by personal dirtiness. In presence of the visible
power of the stream, altars were raised, and adoration
paid to the god whose existence was evidenced by such
power. The Egyptians gave their divine river more
than prayers, because their dependence on it was more
absolute than that of other nations on their respective
streams. The Nile, swelling beneficently, bestowed food,
health, and therewith content on the Egyptians ; and they,
in return, flung gratefully into the stream corn, sugar,
and fruit. When human sacrifices were made to rivers,
it was probably because the river was recognised as giving
life, and was worthy of being paid in kind. We may
smUe superciliously at this old reverence for the " liquid
good," but there was connected therewith much that we
might profitably condescend to copy. Greece had her
officers appointed to keep her streams pure. Had those
officials exposed the people to drink such indescribable
matter as we draw from the Thames, they would have
been thrown into it by popular indignation. In Kome,
Ancus Martius was long remembered, not for his victo-
ries, but for his care to supply the city with salubrious
and sufficient water ; and if people generally cursed Nero
for his crimes, they acknowledged that he had at least not
damaged the public aqueducts ; and that in his reign ice-
houses were first bmlt, the contents of which enabled
thousands to quaff the cool beverage which is so com-
mendably spoken of by Aristotle.

The fountains were the ornaments of the pubHc places,
as the crystal ampulla, with. its slender neck and its
globular body, was of the side-boards of private houses in
Ilome. The common people drank to excess, both of hot
water and cold : the former they drank in large measures ;
— ^this was in winter, and in taverns where they fed

16 TABLE TEAITS.

largely upon pork, and drank the water as a stimulant !
The Emperor Claudius looked upon this regimen as an
immoral indulgence, and he closed the taverns where pro-
prietors injured the public stomach by such a diet.
Some Eomans were so particular as to boil the water
they intended to drink, in vessels at their own table.
They were Hke the epicures who never intrust the boil-
ing of an egg to their own cooks. We may notice that
Augustus employed it lavishly, both as a bather and
drinker. The "faculty" were unanimous in recommend-
ing a similar use of it, and some of these gentlemen made
considerable fortunes by the various methods of applying
it. For instance, patients resorting to Charmis, to take
cold baths in winter under his direction, were required to
pay him a consulting fee of £800 ! He was the first
" water-cure" Doctor that ever practised, and he realized
a fortune such as his successors may aim at in vain.

Horace Walpole, forgetting what he had once before
said, namely, that diet and patience formed the universal
panacea, declared that bis " great nostrum was the use of
cold water, inwardly and outwardly, on all occasions, and
that with disregard of precaution against catching cold.
I have often," he continues, " had the gout in my face
and eyes, and instantly dip my head in a pail of cold
water, which always cures it, and does not send it any
where else." And again, alluding to another use of
water, he says sneeringly, " Whether Christianity will
be laid aside I cannot say. As nothing of the spirit is
left, the forms, I think, signify very little. Surely^ it is
not an age of morahty and principle ; does it import
whether profligacy is baptized or not ?"

With regard to the sanitary application of water, as
noticed by Walpole, there can be no doubt but that diet
and digestion proceed the more perfectly, as the ablution
of the body is general and daily, and made with cold

WATEB. 17

water. But discretion must be used ; for there are con-
ditions of the body wbich cannot endure cold bathing
without palpitation of the heart following. In such case,
tepid water should be used for a time, when the palpita-
tions will soon cease, unless the heart be organically
affected.

The same writer's remarks on the Christian uses of
water, remind me of what is said of some such uses in
Weever's " Funeral Monuments." He cites the inscrip-
tions that used to be placed over the holy water in
ancient churches. Some deposed that the sprinkling of
it drove away devils : —

"ffujus aqnts tactus dejpellit damonis actus."

Others promised a blessing, as, for example : —

" A^erget vos Detts cum omnibus Sanctis suis ad vitam aternam."

Another implied, that sis benefits arose from its use;

namely, —

" Sex operantur aqud henedictd:

Cor mundat, accidiam (!'Jfuqat, venalia tollit,
Aiiget opem, removetgue Jwstem, phantasmata pellit."

Homer, too, it will be recollected, speaks of the soimd of
water inspiring consolatory thoughlo, in the passage
where he describes one " suffering cruel wounds from a
diseased heart, but he found a remedy ; for, sitting down
beneath a lofty rock, looking down upon the sea, he
began to sing."

The dormitories of many of the old convents were
adorned with inscriptions recommendatory of personal
cleanliness ; but the inmates generally were more content
with the theory than the practice : they were, in some
degree, like the man at Bishop-Middleham, who died
with the reputation of a water-drinker, but who really
lulled himself by secret drunkenness. He praised water

c

18 TABLE TEAITS.

in public, but drank brandy in private, though it was not
till after death that his delinquency was discovered.

The use of water against the spells of witchcraft lin-
gered longer in Scotland than elsewhere. The Straths
down Highlander even now, it is said, is not ashamed to
drink " the water of the dead and living ford," on New
Tear's Day, as a charm to secure him from sorcery until
the ensuing New Tear.

St. Bernard, the Abbot, made application of water for
another purpose. Butler says of him, that he once hap-
pened to fix his eyes on the face of a woman ; but imme-
diately reflecting that this was a temptation, he ran to a
pond, and leaped up to the neck into the water, which
was then as cold as ice, to punish himself, and to van-
quish the enemy !

There is a second incident connected with water, that
will bear to be told as an illustration, at least, of old
times. When Patricius was Bishop of Prusa, the Pro-
consul Julius resorted thither to the famous baths, and
was restored to such vigorous health thereby, that he not
only made sacrifice of thanksgiving to Esculapius and
Health, but required the Bishop to follow his example.
The Prelate declined, and the Proconsul ordered him to
be thrown into a caldron of boiling water, by which he
was no more affected than if he had been enjoying a bath
of tepid rose-water. Whereupon he was taken out and
beheaded. The power that kept the water cool did not
interfere to blunt the axe.

We have seen the reverence paid by certain " ancients
of old" to the supposed divinities whose crystal thrones
were veiled beneath the waves. Men under a better dis-
pensation have shown, perhaps, a worse superstition.
Bede makes mention of a Monk who thought he would
purify his sin-stained spirit by actual ablution. He had,
the church-historian tells us, a solitary place of residence

■WATEE. 19

assigned him in the monastery, adjacent to a river : into the
latter he was accustomed to plunge, by way of penance to
his body. He went manfullj- to the bottom, and his mouth
was no sooner again in upper air, than it was opened to
give utterance to lusty prayer and praise.' He would
sometimes thus stand for hours, up to the neck, and
uttering his orisons aloud. He was in full dress when
this penance was performed, and, on coming from the
stream, he let his wet, and sometimes frozen, garments
dry upon his person. A Friar, once seeing him break the
ice, in order that he might make his penitential plunge,
expressed shiveringly his wonder at the feat : " It must
be so very cold," said the Friar. "I have seen greater
cold," was the sole remark of the devotional diver.
" Such austerity I never beheld," exclaimed another
spectator. "Z have beheld far greater," replied the
Monk. " And thus," adds the historian, as simply as
any of them, " thus he forwarded the salvation of many
by his words and example."

Connected with a pious man of our own time, I may
mention an incident touching water, which is rather
remarkable : — ^the person to whom I allude is Bishop
Grobat, of Jerusalem. He states, in his last Annual
Letter, that he is building a school which will cost him
about £600 : the school is not yet finished ; but the
water used for mixing the mortar has already cost the
enormous sum of £60. It is, in fact, a luxury which
must be paid for. Where it is so dear, it were well if
the people never were thirsty ; and there were such peo-
ple of old.

The late Vice-ChanceUor of England, Sir LaLcelot
ShadweU, was as indefatigable a bather as the Monk
noticed by Bede. Every morning throvghout the year,
during his residence at Barnes Elms, he might be seen
wrestling joyously with the Thames. It is said that, on
0 2

20 TABLE TEAITS.

one oecaBion, a party, in urgent need of an injunction,
after looking for tlie Judge in a hundred places where he
was not to be found, at length took boat, and encountered
him. as he was swimming in the river. There he is said
to have heard the case, Ustenirig to the details as the
astonished applicants made them, and now and then per-
forming a frohcsome " summersault," when they paused
for want of breath. The injunction was granted, it is
said ; after which the applicants left the Judge to continue
his favourite aquatic sport by himself.

If the late amiable and able Vice-ChanceUor was a
water-lawyer, so was the late Archdeacon Singleton a
water-divine. When tutor to the young Lords Percy, he,
and the eldest of the sons of the then Duke of Northum-
berland,— ^Hugh, Earl Percy, — were expert swimmers, and
often, by their achievements, excited the admiration of less
daring venturers. The Archdeacon was accustomed to
float away for miles from Sion, depending upon the tide
to float him back again. At first, many a boatman looked
inquiringly at the motionless body carrying on with the
stream ; but, when he was better known, his appearance
thus excited no more surprise than if he had been in -an
outrigger, calmly taking a pull before the hour of dinner.

With respect to water-drinkers, they seem to have
abounded among the good old Heathens, of whom so many
stories are told that we are not called upon to believe.

Aristotle, who, like Dr. Macnish, wrote an " Anatomy
of Drunkenness," (jiepl miens,) states therein, that he
knew, or had heard, of many people who never experienced
what it was to be thirsty. Archonides, of Argos, is cited
by him as a man who could eat salt beef for a week with-
out caring to drink, therewith or thereafter. Mago, the
Carthaginian, is famous for having twice crossed the
Desert without having once tasted water, or any other
beverage. The Iberians, wealthy and showy people as

"WATEE. 21

they were, were water-drinkers ; and it was peculiar to
some of the Sophists of Elis,that they lived upon nothing
tut water and dried figs. Their hodUy strength, which
was great, is said to have been the result of such diet ;
but, it is added, that the ■ pores of their skin exuded any
thing but a celestial ichor, and that, whenever they went
to the baths, aU the other bathers fled, holding their
ofiended noses between their fingers ! Matris, of Athens,
lived aU his life upon myrtle-berries and water ; but, as
nobody knows how long he did Uve, it would be rather
rash to imitate him in hopes of obtaining extension of .
existence. Lamprus, the musician, was a water-drinker,
as were Polemon, the Academician, and Diodes, of Pepa-
rethus ; but, as they were never famous for any thing
else, they are hardly worth citing. It is different when we
contrast Demosthenes with Demades. Demosthenes
states, in his second Philippic, that he was a water-
drinker; and Pytheas was right, when he bade the
Athenians remark, that the sober demagogue was, like
Dr. Young, in fact, constantly engaged hx solemn Night
Thoughts. "Not so your other demagogue, Demades,"
said Pytheas; "he is an unclean fellow, who is daily
drunk, and who never comes into your assemblies but to
exhibit his enormous paunch." Such was the style of elec-
tion speeches in Greece ; and it has a smack of the hust-
ings, and, indeed, of the market, too, in Covent Garden.

To turn from old to modern mythology, I may notice
that water entered into the old sports of St. Distaff's
Day, or the morrow after Twelfth Day. It is thus
alluded to by one whose " mind was jocund, but his life
was chaste," — ^the lyric Parson of Dean Priors : —

' Partly work and partly play
Ye must, on St. Distaff's Day.
From the plough soon free your team,
Then come home and folher them.

22 TABLE TEAITS.

If the maids a-spinning go,
' Eum the flax, and fire the tow.
Scorch their placlcets, but beware
That ye singe no maiden-hair.
Bring in pails of water then.
Let the maids bewaah the men.
Give St. Distaff all the right.
Then bid Christmas sport ' Good-night ;'
And next morrow ev'ry one
To his own vocation."

When Herrick wrote these lines, I do not know how it
may have been at Dean Priors, but London was but indif-
ferently supplied with water. But now London is sup-
pKed with water from eight different sources. Five of
them are on the north, or Middlesex, side of London,
three on the Southwark and Surrey side. The first com-
prise the New Eiver, at Islington ; the East London, at
Old Ford, on the Lea ; the West Middlesex, on the
Thames, at Brentford and Hammersmith ; and the Chel-
sea and Grand Junction, on the same river, at Chelsea.
The south side is entirely supplied from the Thames, by
the Southwaik, Lambeth, and VauxhaU Waterworks,
whose names are descriptive of their locality.

The daily supply amounts to about 35,000,000 of
gallons, of which more than a third is supplied by the
New River Company. The original projector of this
Company was Sir Hugh Myddelton, who proposed to sup-
ply the London conduits from the wells about Amwell
and Ware. The project was completed ia 1613, to the
benefit of posterity and the ruin of the projector. The
old hundred-pound shares are now worth ten times their
original cost.

In 1682 the private houses of the metropolis were only
supplied with fresh water twice a-week. Mr. Cunning-
ham, in his "Handbook of London," informs us that the
old sources of supply were the Wells, or Fleet Eiver,

WATEE. 23

Wallbrook and Langbourne Waters, Clement's, Clerk's,
and Holy Well, Tyburn, and the Eiver Lea. Tyburn
first supplied the City in the year 1285, the Thames not
being pressed into the service of the City conduits till
1568, when it supplied the conduit at Dowgate. There
were people who stole water from the pipes then, as there
are who steal gas now. " This yere," (1479,) writes an
old chronicler of London, quoted by Mr. Cunningham,
"a wax-charndler in Flete Strete had bi craft perced a
pipe of the oondite withynne the ground, and so conveied
the water into his selar ; wherefore he was judged to ride
thurgh the Citee with a condite upon his hedde." The
first engine which conveyed water into private houses, by
leaden pipes, was erected at London Bridge, in 1582.
The pipes were laid over the steeple of St. Magnus ; and
the engineer was Maurice, a Dutchman. Bulmer, an
Englishman, erected a second engine, at Broken Wharf.
Previous to 1656, the Strand and Covent Garden, though
so near to the river, were only supplied by water-tankards,
which were carried by those who sold the water, or by
the apprentice, if there were one in the house, whose duty
it was to fill the house-tankard at the conduit, or in the
river. In the middle of the seventeenth century, Ford
erected water-works on the Thames, in front of Somerset
House ; but the Queen of Charles II. — like the Princess
Borghese, who pulled down a church next to her palace,
because the incense turned her sick, and the organ made her
head ache — ordered the works to be demolished, because
they obstructed a clear view on the river. The inhabit-
ants of the district depended upon their tankards and
water-carriers, imtU the reign of WnUam III., when
the York-buildings Waterworks were erected. The
frequently-occurring name of Conduit-street, or Conduit-
courtj indicates the whereabout of many of the old
sources whence our forefathers drew their scanty supplies.

24 TABLE TEAITS.

Water is not necessarily unhealthy, because of a Httle
earthy matter in it ; mineral, or animal, or vegetable mat-
ter held in it, by solution, or othenvise, renders it decidedly
unwholesome. Eain water is the purest water, when it
is to be had by its natural' distillation in the open fields.
When collected near towns, it should never be used with-
out being previously boiled and strained.

The hardness of water is generally caused by the pre-
sence of sulphate of lime. Horses commonly refuse to
drink hard water, — a water that can make neither good
tea, nor good beer, and which frequently contains many
salts. Soft water, which is a powerful solvent of aU vege-
table matters, is to be preferred for all domestic purposes.
Eiver water is seldom pure enough for drinking. Where
purest, it has lost its carbonic acid from long exposure ;
and in the neighbourhood of cities it is often a slow
poison, and nothing more, scarcely to be rescued from
the name by the process of filtration. London is still
supplied, at a very costly price, with water which is
" offensive to the sight, disgusting to the imagination,
and destructive to the health." Thames water, as at
present flowing into our houses, is at once the jackal
and aide-de-camp of cholera. People are apt to praise it,
as being the water from which is made the purest porter
in the world ; but it is a well-known fact, that the great
London brewers never employ it for that purpose.

The more a spring is drawn from, the softer the water
will become ; hence old weUs furnish a purer water than
those which are more recent ; but a well of soft water is
sensibly hardened by a coating of bricks. To obviate this,
the bricks should be coated with cement. Snow water
deserves a better reputation than it has acquired. Lake
water is fitted only for the commonest household detergent
purposes. But the salubrity of water is converted into
poison by the conveyances which bring it almost to our lips;

WATEE. 25

and we have not yet adopted in full the recommendation
of Vitruvius and CohimeUa to use pipes of earthenware, as
being not only cheaper, hut more durahle and more whole-
some, than lead. We stiU convey away refuse water in
earthenware, and hring fresh water into our houses in
lead! The noted choleraic colic of Amsterdam, in the
last century, was entirely caused by the action of vegetable
matter in the water-pipes.

Filtration produces no good effect upon hard water.
The sulphate of lime, and still more the super-carbonate
of lime, are only to be destroyed by boiling. Boiled
water, cooled, and agitated in contact with the atmo-
sphere, before use, is a safe and not an unpleasant beverage.
It is essential that the water be boiling when " toast and
water " is the beverage to be taken.

"Water, doubtless, is the natural drink of man — ^in a
natural state. It is the only liquid which truly appeases
thirst ; and a small quantity is sufficient for that effect.
The other liquids are, for the most part, palliatives merely.
If man had kept to water, the saying would not be appU-
cahle to him, that "he is the only animal privileged to
drink without being thirsty." But, then, where would the
medical profession, have been ?

But he does well who, at aU events, commences the
day with water and prayer. With such an one we go
hand in hand, not only in that service, but, as now, to
Breakfast.

BREAKFAST.

SwrFT lent dignity to this repast, and to laundresses
partaking of it, when he said, in illustration of modem
Epicureanism, that " the world must be encompassed
before a washerwoman can sit down to breakfast."

Franklin, who made a "morality" of every sentiment,
and put opinions into dramatical action, has a passage in
some one of his Essays, in which he says, that " Disorder
breakfasts with Plenty, dines with Poverty, sups with
Misery, and sleeps with Death." It is an unpleasant
division of the day, but it is truly described, as far as it
goes. On the other hand, it is not to be concluded that
Disorder is the favourite guest of Abundance ; and I do
not know any one who has described a plentiful breakfast,
with regularity presiding, better than another essayist,
though one of a less matter-of-fact quality than Franklin,
— I mean Leigh Hunt. In the " Indicator " he invites us
to a " Breakfast in Cold Weather." " Here it is," he says,
" ready laid. Imprimis, tea and coffee ; secondly, dry toast ;
thirdly, butter; fourthly, eggs; fifthly, ham; sixthly,
something potted ; seventhly, bread, salt, mustard, knives,
forks, &c. One of the first things that belong to a break-
fast, is a good fire. There is a delightful mixture of the
lively and the snug, in coming down to one's breakfast-
room of a cold morning, and seeing every thing prepared
for us, — a blazing grate, a clean table-cloth and tea-
things; the newly-washed faces and combed heads of a

EEEAKTAST. 27

set of good-humoured urchins ; and the sole empty chair,
at its accustomed corner, ready for occupation. When
we lived alone," he adds, " we could not help reading at
meals ; and it is certainly a dehcious thing to resume an
entertaining hoot, at a particularly interesting passage,
with a hot cup of tea at one's elbow, and a piece of buttered
toast in one's hand. The first look at the page, accom-
panied by a co-existent bite of the toast, comes under the
head of ' intensities.' " Under the head of " &c." in the
above Ust, I should be disposed to include " sunshine ;" for
sunshine in a breakfast-room in winter, is almost as glo-
rious a thing as the fire itself. It is a positive tonic ; it
cheers the spirits, strengthens the body, and promotes
digestion. As for breakfast in hot weather, aU well-
disposed persons who have gardens take that meal, of
course, in "the arhoiir," and amid flowers. Breakfasts
al fresco are all the more intensely enjoyed, because so
few may be discussed in the open air in a country whose
summer consists of "three hot days and a thunder-storm ;"
and in a climate wherein, according to Boerhaave, people
should not leave off their winter clothing tiU Midsummer-
Day, resuming the same the next morning when they are
dressing for breakfast ! Walpole and Boerhaave are
right ; our summers do sometimes set in with extraor-
dinary severity.

The breakfast of a Greek soldier, taken at dawn of day,
required a strong head to bear it. It consisted of bread
soaked in wine. If Princes were in the habit of so break-
ing their fast, we hardly need wonder at the denunciation
in Ecclesiastes against those who eat in the morning.
The Greek patricians sat daily down to but one soUd
meal. Soldiers and plebeians had less controllable appe-
tites, and these could not be appeased with less than two
meals a-day. They were accounted peculiarly coarse
people who consumed three. The Eomans were, in this

28 TABIE TEAITS.

respect, simUar to the Greeks. Fashionable people ate
little or nothing before the hour when they compensated
for a long fast by a daily meal, where they fed hugely.
A simple breakfast, as soon as they awoke, of " bread and
cheese," has a very unclassical soimd; but good authority
assures us, that it was a custom duly honoured with much
observance. Not of such light fare, however, was the
breakfast of Galba. Suetonius says that the old Emperor
used to cry for his morning repast long before day-break.
This was in winter time. He took the meal in bed, and
was probably induced to do so by indisposition ; for he
was a huge, ogre-like supper-eater, — eating much, leaving
more, and ordering the remains to be divided among the
attendants, who duly, rather than dignifiedly, scrambled
for the same.

Modern epicures would hardly approve of some of the
dishes half-consumed by the hungry Galba at breakfast ;
but potentates of our own days have made their first
meal upon very questionable matta:.

When Clapperton, the African traveller, breakfasted
with the Sultan of Baussa, which is a collection of
straggling villages on the banks of the Quorjra, among
the delicacies presented were a large grUled water-rat,
and alligators' eggs, fried or stewed. The company were
much amazed at the singularity of taste which prompted
the stranger to choose fish and rice in preference to those
savoury viands. The Prince, who gave this public break-
fast in honour of a foreign commoner, was disgusted at
the fastidious super-delicacy of his guest. In the last
century, our commoners used to give similar entertain-
ments in honour of Princes.

" JEKa Lselia" Chudleigh, as Walpole calls the famous
lady who was stiE more famous as Duchess of Kingston,
gave splendidly untidy entertainments of this sort in a splen-
didly untidy mansion. Her suppers will be foimd noticed

EEEAKFAST. 29

in another page. In 1763, slie gave a concert and vast
cold collation, or "breakfast," in honour of Prince Edward's
birthday. The scene is admirably painted by Walpole.
" The house is not fine, nor in good taste, but loaded with
finery. Execrable varnished pictures, chests, cabinets,
commodes, tables, stands, boxes, riding on one another's
backs, and loaded with terrenes, figures, fiUigrees, and
every thing upon earth ! Every favour she has bestowed
is registered by a bit of Dresden China. There is a large
case full of enamels, eggs, ambers, lapis-lazuU, cameos,
tooth-pick cases, and all kinds of trinkets, things that
she told me were her playthings. Another cupboard full
of the finest japan, and candlesticks, and vases of rock-
crystal, ready to be thrown down in every corner. But
of all curiosities are the conveniencies in every bed-
chamber ; great mahogany projections, with brass handles,
cocks, &c. I could not help saying it was the loosest
family I ever saw."

There was a philosopher of the same century, at whom
even Walpole "dared not have sneered. I allude to Dr.
Black, whom Lavoisier called " the Nestor of the Chemical
Eevolution." Dr. Black was famous for the , frugality of
his breakfasts, and for the singularity of his death, when
seated at that repast. His usual fare was a little bread,
a few prunes, and a measured quantity of mUlc and water.
One morning in November, 1799, he was seated at this
modest meal. His cup was in his hand, when the
Inevitable Angel beckoned to him, and the Christian
philosopher calmly obeyed. He placed the cup on his
knees, " which were j'oined together, and kept it steady
with his hand, in the manner of a person perfectly at his
ease; and in this attitude he expired, without a drop
being spilt, or a feature in his countenance changed, as if
an experiment had been required, to show to his friends
the facility with which he departed." There was neither

30 TABLE TRAITS.

convulsion, shock, nor stupor, we are told, to announce or
retard the approach of death. This was a more becoming
end than that of another chemist, the younger Berthollet,
— although in the latter there was something heroical,
too. He had taken his last .breakfast, when he calmly
proceeded to a sacrifice which he made to the interests of
science. He destroyed his life by enclosing himself in an
atmosphere of carbonic acid. There he began register-
ing aU the successive feelings he experienced, which were
such as would have been occasioned by a narcotic ; — " a
pause, and then an almost illegible word occurred. It is
presumed that the pen dropped irom his hand, and he
was no more."

I have spoken of winter and of summer breakfasts. I
must have recourse to Mr. Forrester's " Norway in 1848
and 1849," to show what a breakfast for a traveller should
be ; namely, oatmeal porridge, or stir-about, with a slice
of rye or wheaten bread. Such a breakfast, he says, wiU
not only fortify the traveller for a lengthened period, but
to the sedentary, the bilious, and the dyspeptic, its adop-
tion wiU afford more relief than the best prescription of a
physician. But this breakfast must be prepared with due
care, and this is the fashion of it : " Take two or three
handsfull of oatmeal ; I prefer it of mixed coarse and fine
meal, in the proportion of one third of the latter to two
of the former. Mingle the meal in a basin of cold water,
and pour it into a saucepan containing about a quart of
boiling water ; add a small portion of salt. Set the sauce-
pan over the fire, and keep stirring it, sprinkling, from
time to time, small quantities of the meal, till the com-
position boils, and has acquired the proper consistency.
That may be known by its glutinous state as it drops
from the spoon. Let it simmer for ten minutes, and then
pour it, not into a deep dish, but into common dinner
plates, and it wiU form a soft, thin, jeUied cake ; spoon

MATEEIAIS FOE BEEAKPAST. 31

out portions of thLs, and float it in new milk, adding moist
sugar, to your taste." For the benefit of others, I may-
add my testimony touching this recipe. I have strictly
followed the instruction given, and I certainly never
tasted any thing to equal the dish. It was execrable !
But it has the double recommendation of being easy to
digest, and of keeping off the sensation of hunger for a
very long time. Use alone is needed to make it a populax
breakfast, and he is a hero who . uses it till he likes it.
But it is time to consider the various

MA.TEEIALS FOE BREAKFAST.

Ajjd first of milk. If Britons really have, what they
so much boast of, — a birth-right, — the least disputable
article of that class, is their undoubted right to that lacteal
treasure which their mother holds from Nature, on trust,
for their use and advantage. •<

It is a curious fact, that aristocratic infants are those
who are most ordinarily deprived of this first right of
their citizenship, and are sent to slake their thirst and
fortify their thews and sinews at ochlocratic breasts.
Jean Jacques Eousseau was not often right, but he was
triumphantly so when he denounced the young and
healthy mother, let her rank be what it might, who
made surrender of what should be one of the purest of a
young mother's pleasures, and flung her child to the
bosom of a stranger. Who can say what bad principles
may not have been drawn in with these " early break-
fasts ?" Certainly this vicarious exercise of the office of
maternity is an abomination ; and the abomination of
having one's child suckled by a mercenary stranger can

only be next in intensity to that of having him but

let us keep to " Table Traits."

32 TABLE TEAITS.

Milk is too popularly known to need description ; but
it is not all that is sold under that name that comes from
the cow. The cow with one arm, that produces what
fresh medical students caU the aqua ptmpagimis, has very
much to do with the dairies of London. Metropolitan
milk-maids are not as unsophisticated as the milk-maids
of the olden time ; if, indeed, maids or milk were particu-
larly pure even then ; for milk was a propitiatory offering
to Mercury, and if ever there was a deity who loved mis-
chief, why, Dan Mercury was the one.

In Rome milk was used as a cosmetic, and for baths as
well as beverage. Five hundred asses supplied the bath
and toilette-vases of the Empress Poppsea; and some
dozen or two were kept to maintain the decaying
strength of Francis I. Of course, asses' milk became
fashionable in Paris immediately, just as bolster cravats
did with us, when the Regent took to them in order to
conceal a temporary disease in the neck.

"OU of milk" and " cow-cheese" were classical names
for butter, — a substance which was not known in either
Greece or Eome until comparatively late periods. Greece
received it from Asia, and Eome knew it not as an article
of food until the legionaries saw the use to which it was
applied by the German matrons. The Scythians, like the
modem Bedouins, were great butter-consumers. Their
chtirners were slaves, captured in war, and bhnded before
they were chained to the sticks beside the tub, at which,
with sightless orbs, they were set to work.

There have been seasons when, as now in Abyssinia,
butter has been burned in the lamps in churches, instead
of on. The "butter-tower" of the cathedral at Eouen
owes its distinctive appellation to its having been built
from the proceeds of a tax levied in return for permis-
sions to eat butter at imcanonical times ; so that the
tower is a monument of the violation of the ecclesiastical

MATEBIALS FOE BEEAKFAST. 33

canons. But there is great licence in these matters ; and
chaipels in Ireland have been constructed with money
raised by putting up Moore's erotic works to he raffled
for, at half-a-erown a ticket !

Goats, cows, sheep, asses, and mares have all contri-
buted their milk towards the making of cheese; and
naitional prejudice has run so high on the question of
superiority, that as many broken heads have been the
result, as there have been rivulets of blood spilt at Dinant
on the question of copper kettles. The Phrygian cheese is
said to have owed its excellence to the fact, that it was
made of asses' and mares' inilk mixed together. I
doubt, however, if the strong-smeUing Phrygian cheese
was equal to our Stilton, — ^which, by the way, is not
made at Stilton, — and whose ripeness has been judiciously
assisted by the addition of a pint of Madeira. Delicate
persons at Eome breakfasted on bread and cheese, — ^prin-
cipally goat cheese. It was administered, on the same
principle that we prescribe rump-steak, as strengthening.
People in rude health flourished in spite of it, and there-
fore ailing people must, it was thought, be invigorated
because of it. However, our own system is less open to
objection than that of the ancient faculty.

I do not know whether mothers will consider it com-
plimentary or not ; but it is a fact, that the mUk of asses
more nearly resembles human milk than any other.
Like the human milk, it contains more saccharine matter
than that of the cow, and deposits a large proportion of
curd by mere repose.

lyrilk is easily assimilated, nourishes quickly, and but
slightly excites to vascular action. It is stringent, how-
ever, and has a tendency to create acidity ; but an addi-
tion of oatmeal gruel will correct both these matters.
Suet, inserted in a muslin bag, and simmered with the
milk, is of highly nourishing quality; but it is some-

Si TABLE TEAITS.

times more than weak stomaclis can 'bear. Lime-water
with milk is recommended as sovereign against the
acidity which milk alone is apt to create in feeble
stomachs.

Eggs have been as violently eiJogized as they have
been condemned, and both in extremes. In some parts
of Africa, where they are very scarce, and the Priests are
very fond of them, it has been revealed to the people,
that it is sacrilege for any but clerical gentlemen to eat
eggs ! The lay scruple, if I may so speak, is quieted by
the assurance, that, though the sacred hens produce only
for the servants at the altar, the latter never address
themselves to the food ia question, without the whole
body of the laity profiting thereby ! I suppose that Dis-
senters naturally abound in this part of Africa. There is
nothing so unsatisfactory as vicarious feeding. Feeding
is a duty which every man is disposed to perform for
himself, whether it be expected of him or not. All the
eggs in Africa, passing the oesophagus of a Priest, could
hardly nourish a layman, even though the eggs were as
gigantic as those which an old author says are presented
by ladies in the moon to their profoimdly delighted hus-
bands, and from which spring young babies, six feet
high, and men at all points.

If the matrons ia the moon were thus remarkable in
this respect, the Egyptian shepherds on earth were not
less so ia another : , they had a singular method of cooking
eggs, without the aid of fire. They laid them in a
shng, and then applied so violent a rotatory motion
thereto, that they were heated and cooked by the very
friction of the air through which they passed '.

Diviners and dreamers dealt largely in eggs. Livia,
was told, just before the birth of Tiberius, to hatch one
in her bosom, and that the sex of the chick would fore-
tell that of the expected little stranger, In Kome and

MATEEIAIS rOE BEEAEPAST. 35

Greece eggs were among the introductory portions of
every iDanquet. But Eome knew only of twenty differ-
ent manners of cooking them. What an advance ia civil-
ization has been made in Paris, which, according to Mr.
Robert Fudge, boasts of six hundred and eighty ifive ways
to dress eggs !

Eggs, filled with salt, used to be eaten by curious
maidens, after a whole day's fasting, on St. Agnes' Eve :
the profit of such a meal was, that she who partook of it
had information, in her afber-dreams, of that very iater-
esting personage, her future husband !

There is a story narrated of a Welsh weaver, that he
could tell, by the look of the egg, whether the bird would
be worth any thing or not. He reminds me of an old
Monk I heard of, when in Prague, who, on a man passing
him, could tell whether he were an honest man, or a
knave, by the smell ! But the Welsh weaver was even
more clever than this. He could not only judge of eggs,
but hatch them. A badger once carried off his sitting-hen,
and no plumed nurse was near to supply her place. The
weaver, thereupon, took the eggs (there were sis of them)
to bed with him, and in about two days hatched them all !
Of this brood he only reared a cock and a hen. The cock
was a gallant bird, that used to win flitches of bacon for
his master at cock-fights ; and the hen was as prolific as
Mrs. Partlett could have desired. The result was, that
they kept their step-mother, the weaver, in bacon and
eggs for many a month ; and the two days spent ia bed
were not so entirely thrown away as might, at first sight,
appear.

Let it be xmderstood that eggs may lose their nourish-
ment by cooking. The yolk, raw or very slightly boiled,
is exceedingly nutritious. It is, moreover, the only food
for those afflicted with jaundice. When an egg has been
exposed to a long continuance of culinary heat, its nature
D 2

36 TABLE TEAIT3.

is eutirely changed. A slightly-boiled egg, however, is
more easy of digestion than a raw one. The best accom-
paniment for a hard egg isviaegar. Eaw eggs have a
laxative effect; hard-boiled, the contrary. There is an
idiosyncrasy ia some persons, which shows itself in the
utter disgust which they experience, not only against the
egg itself, but also against any preparation of which it
forms an ingredient, however shght. Eggs should always
be liberally accompanied by bread ; — of which I will now
say a few words, and first of

COEN.

OrE first parents received the mission to cultivate the
garden which was given them for a home. Their Hebrew
descendants looked upon tillage of all descriptions with a
reverence worthy of the authority which they professed
to obey. The sons of the tribes stood proudly by the
plough, the daughters of the patriarchs were gleaners,
warriors lent their strength in the threshing bam, Kings
guided oxen, and Prophets were summoned from the fur-
rows to put on their mantles, and go forth and tell of
things that were to come. What Heaven had enjoined, the
law enforced. The people were taught to love and hold by
the land which was in their own possession. To alienate
it was to commit a crime, And, it is from this ancient
rule, probably, that has descended to us the feeling which
universally prevails, — that he alone is aristocratic, has the
best of power, who is lord of the land, upon which he has
built his earthly tabernacle.

The fields of Palestine were fertile beyond what was
known elsewhere ; her cattle produced more abundantly,
and the very appeUatioijs of many of her localities have
reference to the beauty and the blessings showered down
upon them by the Lord.

COEN. 37

Next to it, perhaps, in richness and productiveness, was
Egypt, the home of fugitives from other homes where
temporary famine reigned. Egypt was long the granary
of the Roman empire, and twenty million bushels of corn,
was the life-sustaining tribute which she annually poured
into the store-houses of Imperial Eome. That territory
could hardly be more productive, of which an old Latin
author speaks, and touching which he says, that a rod
thrust into the soil at night would be found budding before
morning. And this ancient story, I may notice, has been
the venerable father of a large family of similar jokes
among our Transatlantic cousins.

The Egyptians recognised Osiris as their instructor
how to subdue and use the earth. The Greeks took the
teaching from Ceres. Romulus, too, acknowledged the
divine influence ; and his ■ first pubhc act, as King, was
to raise the twelve sons of his nurse into a priesthood,
charged with watching over the fields, and paying sacri-
fice and prayer to Jove for yearly increase of harvests.

It was a selfish wish ; but not more so than that of the
Italian peasants, who, when one who was a native of their
district had been raised to the tiara, sent a delegation to
request an especial favomr at his hands. The new Pope
looked on his old acquaintances benevolently, and bade
them express their wish. " They wanted but a modest
boon," they replied: "nothing more than a declaration
from the Pontiff that their district should be henceforth
distinguished by its having two harvests every year!"
And the obliging "successor of the Fisherman" smiled,
and not only granted their request, but promised more
than he was petitioned for. " To do honour to my old
friends," said he, "not alone shall they have two harvests
every year, but henceforth the year in their district shall
be twice as long as it is in any other !" And therewith
the simple people departed joyously.

38 TABLE TEAITS.

The older Eomans honoured agriculture, as did the
Jews. Their language bore reference to this, their coin
was stamped with symbols in connexion therewith, and
their public treasury ^'pascua" showed, by its name, that
"pasturage " was wealth. So he who was rich in minted
coia enjoyed the peounia, or "money," for which "flocks"
(pecus) were bought and sold. The owner of an " estate "
(locus) was locuples, a term for a ma» well endowed with
worldly goods ; and he was in possession of a " salary,"
who had his solarium, his allowance of salt-money, or of
salt, wherewith to savour the food by which he Uved.

The Greeks refreshed the mouths of their ploughing
oxen with wine. The labour was considerable; for,
although the plough was light, it lacked the conveniencies
of the more modern implement. Like the Anglo-Norman
plough, it had no wheels : the wheeled plough is the
work of the inventive Gauls.

The French Eepublicans made a show of paying honour
to agriculture by pubUc demonstrations, the chief actors
in which were the foremost men in the Land of Equality.
They, absurdly enough, took their idea from the example
presented them by a Monarch, all of whom they pro-
nounced execrable ; and by one, too, who was the most
despotic upon earth, — ^the Emperor of China.

And, in the case of the Emperor, there probably was
more ostentation than any better motive for the act.
Grimm, in his " Correspondence," says, truly enough,
that the ceremony is a fine one, which places the Emperor
of China, every year, at the tail of the plough ; but, as he
adds, it is possible that, hke much of the etiquette of
European Courts, such a custom may have sunk into a
mere observance, exercising no influence on the public
mind. " I defy you," he says, " to find a more impressive
ceremony than that by which the Doge of Venice yearly
declares himself the husband of the Adriatic Sea. How

COEN. 39

exalting ! — tow stimulating ! — how proudly inspiring for
the Venetians, when their nation was, in reality, sove-
reign of the seas ! But now it is little more than a ridi-
culous sport, and without any other effect than that of
attracting a multitude of people to the Fair of the
Ascension."

Charles IX., infamous as he was in most respects, was
honourable in one ; namely, in exempting from arrest for
debt all persons engaged in the cultivation of land, "with
intent to raise grain and fruit necessary for the sustenance
of men and beasts." All the property of such husband-
men was alike exempted from seizure ; and it strikes us,
that this was a much more reasonably-founded exemption
than that with which we endow roue Members of Parlia-
ment, who have no excuse for exceeding their income.
They are free from arrest for six weeks from the proroga-
tion of Parliament ; and this is the cause of the farce
which is so often played in the autumn and winter, when
Parliament is " further prorogued." The Great Council
would be all the better for the absence of men who so far
forget their duty as to cheat her Majesty's lieges by
exceeding their own income. The Senate could better
spare the spendthrifts, than the land could spare the pre-
sence of him whose mission it is to render it productive.

Wheat is a native of Asia, — some say, of Siberia ; others,
of Tartary ; but it is a matter of doubt, whether it can
now be found there growing in a wild state. The Eomans
created a corn-god, and then asked its protection. The
powerful deity was called Eobigus, and he was solemnly
invoked, on every 25th of April, to keep mildew from the
grain. The- Eomans had a reverence for com, but barley
was excepted from this homage ; and to threaten to put
an offending soldier on rations of barley, was to menace
him with disgrace. The Italian antipathy still exists, if
we may believe the Italian Professor, who, being offered

40 TABLE TEAITS,

a tasin of gruel, (made from liarley,) declared its proper
appeUation to be " acqua crudeley He accounted of it, as
PUny did of rye, that it was detestable, and could only be
swallowed by an extremely hungry man. Oats were only
esteemed a degree higher by VirgiL The poet speaks of
them almost as disparagingly as Johnson did, when he
described them as " food for horses in England, and for
men in Scotland." The grain, however, found a good

advocate in him who asked, " where did you ever see

such horses and such men?" The meal is, nevertheless,
of a heating quaUty, and certain cutaneous diseases are
traced to a too exclusive use of it. But oatmeal cakes
are not bad eating, — ^where better is not to be prociu:ed, —
though they are less attractive to the palate than those
sweet buns made from sesame grain, and which the
Eomans not only swallowed with dehght, but used the
name proverbially. The lover who was treating his mis-
tress to sugared phrases, was said to be regaling her with
"sesame cakes." This sort of provision was very largely
dealt in by Latin lovers. It was to be had cheaply ; and
nymphs consumed as fast as swains presented.

If lovers gave the light bread of persuasion to win a
maiden's affection, the Government distributed solid loaves,
or com to make them with, to the people, in order to gain
the popular esteem, and suppress sedition. In some cases,
it was as a "poor's rate" paid by the Emperors, and cost-
ing them nothing. In too many cases, it was ill applied ;
and if Adrian daily fed all the children of the poor, other
imperial rulers showered their tens of thousands of bushels
daily on an idle populace and a half-dressed soldiery. It
was easily procured. Sixty nuHions of bushels — twenty
times that number of pounds' weight — ^were supplied by
Africa; and those "sweet nurses of Eome," the islands
of the Mediterranean, also poured into the imperial gra-
naries an abundant tribute of the golden seed. It is a

COEN. 41

fact, however, that neither Homaus nor Gauls were, till a
late period, acquainted with the method of making fer-
mented hread. ,

Ambrosia, nine times sweeter than honey, was the food
of the gods ; the first men existed on more bitter fare,
— ^bread made from acorns. Ceres has the honour of
having introduced a better fare. Men worshipped her
accordingly ; and, abandoning acorns, took also to eating
the pig, now allowed to fatten on them at his leisure.
Ceres and King Miletus dispute the renown of having
invented grinding-stones^ The hand-mill was one of the
trophies which the Eoman eagles bore back with them
from Asia. Mola, the goddess charged therewith, looked to
the well-being of mills, millers, and bread. In Greece,
Mercury had something to do with this. It was he, at
least, who sent to the Athenian market-women, selling
bread, their customers ; and, as he was the God of Elo-
quence, it is, doubtless, from this ancient source that all
market-women are endowed with shrewdness and loquacity.

The Athenian bread-sellers are said to have possessed
both. Our ladies of the Gate, in Tuning's Ward, are,
probably, not behind them ; and I am inclined to think
that a true old-fashioned Bristol market-woman would
surpass both. Let me cite an instance.

Some years ago, an old member of this ancient sister-
hood was standing at her stall, in front of one of the
Bristol banks. She had a £10 Bank-of-England note ia
her hand; and as, in her younger days, she had been
nitrse-maid in the family of one of the partners, she
thought she might venture to enter, and ask for gold for
her note. She did so ; but it was at a time when guuieas
were worth five-and-twenty shillings a-piece, and gold was

scarce, and in short, she met with a refusal. The

quick-witted market-woman, without exhibiting any dis-
appointment, thereupon asked the cashier to let her have

42 TABLE TEAITS.

ten of the bank's £1 notes In exchange for her " Bank-of-
Englander." The cashier was delighted to accommodate
her in this fashion. The exchange being completed, the
old lady, taking np one of the provincial notes, read aloud
the promise engraved upon it, to pay the bearer in cash.
"Very good!" said she, with a gleesome chuckle, "now
gi' me goold for yowr notes, or I'U nm to the door, and
call out, ' Bank 's broke !' '.' There was no resisting this,
and the market-woman departed triumphantly with her
gold. Light-heeled Mercury could not have helped her
better than she helped herself, by means of her own sharp
wit.

Despite what Virgil says of oats, the Eoman soldiery,
for many years, had no better food than gruel made from
oatmeal, and sharpened for the appetite by a little vine-
gar. The vinegar was an addition suggested by Numa,
who also not only improved the very rude ideas which
previously prevailed with regard to the making of bread,
but turned baker himself, and sent his loaves to the ovens
which he had erected, and to the bakers whom he had
raised into a "gmld," placed under the protection of the
goddess Fornax ; — and a very indifferent, nay, disreputable,
deity she was ! The public ovens were to the people of
Eome what a barber's shop is to a village ia war time, —
the temple of gossip. It had been well had they never
been any thing worse ! The vocation of baker was here-
ditary in a family ; the son was compelled to follow his
father's calling. Occasionally, a member of the fraternity
was offered a senatorship ; but then he was required to
make over his property, reahzed by baking, to his suc-
cessors; and, consequently, the honour was as deeply
declined as the London mayoralty would be by the
Governor of the Bank of England.

If Fornax was the goddess to whose patronage the
bakers were consigned by the State, she suffered by the

COEH-. 43

religious liberty exercised by the bakers themselves, who
chose to pay adoration to Vesta. Vesta was the very
antipodes in character and attributes to !Pomax ; and the
selection of the former would seem to show, that the
generally reviled bakers could not only praise virtue, but
practise it.

Endless were the varieties of bread sold ia the markets
at Eome. There was Cappadocian bread for the wealthy ;
pugilistic loaves for the athletae; batter-bread for the
strong, and Greek rolls for the weak, of stomach : and
there were the prepared bread poultices, which people
who, like Pompey's young soldiers, were afraid of injur-
ing their complexion, were wont to keep applied to their
cheeks during the hours of sleep. Anadyomene so slum-
bering, with Adonis at her side similarly poulticed, can
hardly be said to be a subject for a painter ; and yet many
a blooming Caia slept on the bosom of her Caius, and
more panis madidus than blushes on the cheeks of either.

Pliny ventures on a strange statement with regard to
oats. He says that oats and barley are so nearly allied,
that when a man sows the one, he is not sure that he
may not reap the other ! He also illustrates the prolifip-
ness of rmllet, by asserting that a single grain produced
"innumerable ears of com; and that a bushel (twenty
pounds' weight) of miUet would make more than sixty
pounds of wholesome bread!" The Eomans and the
Greeks also appear to have been acquainted with Indian
com.

Jean Jacques Eousseau, much as he afiFected to love
nature, — and he was himself one of the most artificial of
characters, — knew very little about her, or her produc-
tions. Some of our great men are described as being in
much the same condition of ignorance. Three poets of the
last century were one day walking through a field, pro-
mising a glorious harvest of grain. One of them extoUed

44 TABIiE TEAITS.

the beauty of the wheat. "Nay," said the second, "it
is rye." "Not so," remarked the third, "it is a field of
barley." A clown, standing by, heard and marvelled at
the triple ignorance. " Tou are all wrong, gentlemen,"
said he ; " those be oats." The poets were town-bred ;
or were of that class of people who go through a country
with their eyes open, and are unable to distinguish between
its productions. I have seen Londoners contemplating,
with a very puzzled look, the " canary " crops growing iu
the vicinity of Heme Bay ; and I was once gravely asked
if it was "teazle!"

These crops are, as I was told by a grower, "capri-
cious." They will grow abundantly upon certain land
having certain aspects ; but where the aspect is changed,
although the land be chemically the same, the canary
wiE scarcely grow at all. It is shipped in large quantities
from Heme Bay for London, where it is used for many
purposes. None of its uses are so singular as one to which
com was applied, some thirty years ago, in the western
settlements of America, namely, for stretching boots and
shoes. The boot or shoe was well filled with corn, and
made secure by such tight tying that none could escape.
It was then immersed for several hours in water ; during
which the leather was distended by the gradual swelling
of the grain. After being taken from the water, a coat-
ing of neat's-foot oO, laid on and left to dry, rendered the
boot or shoe fit for wear.

A more interesting anecdote in connexion with com,
and illustrative of character, is afibrded us by Dr. Chal-
mers in his Diary. The Doctor, as is well known, — and he
was ever ready to confess his weakness, — occasionally let
his warm temper get the better of his excellent judgment.
Here is an instance, which shows, moreover, how Chris-
tian judgment recovered itself from the influence of
human nature : " Nov. 20th, 1812. — ^Was provoked with

coEir. 45

Thomas taking it upon him to ask more com for my
horse. It has got feeble under his administration of
com, and I am not without suspicion that he appropriates
it ; and his eagerness to have it strengthens the suspi-
cion. Erred in betraying anger to my servant and wife ;
and, though I afterwards got my feelings into a state of
placidity and forbearance, upon Christian principles, was
moved and agitated when I came to talk of it to himself.
Let me take the com into my own hand, but carry it to
him with entire charity. O, my God, support me !"
Was it not to Socrates that some one said ? — " To judge
from your looks, you are the best-tempered man in the
world." "Then my looks belie me," replied the philo-
sopher ; " I have the worst possible temper, by nature ;
with the strongest possible control over it, by philo-
sophy." Chalmers was, in one sense, like Socrates ; but
the control over his stubborn infirmity had something
better " than your philosophy " for its support.

Reverting to the feeding of horses, I may notice, that,
according to the Earl of Northumberland's " Household
Book," the com was not thrown loose into the manger,
but made into loaves. It has been conjectured, that the
English poor formerly ate the same bread. There can be
no question about it ; and even at the present time it is
no uncommon sight, in some towns of the Continent, to
see a driver feeding his horse from a loaf, an^ occasionally
taking a slice therefrom for himself.

There is no greater consumer of com in England than
the pigeon. Vancouver, in laudable zeal for the hungry
poor, calls pigeons "voracious and insatiate vermin." He
calculates the pigeons of England and Wales at nearly a
million and a quarter ; " consuming 159,500,000 pints of
com annually, to the value of £1,476,562. 10s." It is im-
possible for calculation to be made closer. Darwin says of
pigeons, that they have an organ in the stomach for

46 TABIE TEAITS.

secreting milk. And it is not alone in tlie way of devour-
ing corn that they are destructive. In the " Philosophical
Transactions," it is mentioned that pigeons for many
ages built under the roof of the great church of Pisa.
Their dung spontaneously took fire, at last, and the
church was consumed.

I have said that the Roman soldiers marched to victory
xmder the influence of no more exciting stimulant than
gruel and vinegar. A little oatmeal has often sustained
the strength of our own legions ia the hour of struggle.
The Germans, brave as they are, sometimes require a
more substantial support. Thus, after a defeat endured
by the Great Frederick, hundreds of respectable burgesses
of the province of Mark set out as volunteers for the
royal army,— the Hellengers in white, the Sauerlanders
in bluejackets, — each man with a stout staflf in 'his hand,
and a rye loaf and a ham on his back. " Fritz " glared
with astonishment when they presented themselves at his
head-quarters. "Where do you fellows come from?"
said he. " From Mark, to help our King." " Who doesn't
want you," interrupted Fritz. "So much the better;
we are here of our own accord." " Where are your
officers?" " We have none." " And how many of you
deserted by the way ?" " Deserted !" cried the Markers
indignantly : "if any of us had been capable of that, we
should not be what we are, — ^volunteers." "True!"
said the King, " and I can depend upon you. You shall
have iire enough soon to toast your bread and cook your
hams by."

When Henri IV. was besieging Paris, held by the
Leaguers, the want most severely felt by the famished
inhabitants was that of bread. The Guise party, who held
the city, — and the most active agent of that party was the
Duchess of Montpensier, the sister of Duke Henri of
Guise, — endeavoured to keep life in the people by means

BriTEE. 47

that nature revolts at. When every other sort of food
had disappeared, the Government within the walls dis-
tributed very diminutive rolls made of a paste, the chief
ingredient in which was human bones ground to powder.
The people devoured them under the name of " Madame
de Montpensier's cakes;" — no wonder that they soon
after exultingly welcomed the entry of a King, who
declared that his fitrst desire was to secure to every man
in France his "poule au pot!" But enough of bread.
Let us examine briefly the subject of

BUTTEE.

The illustrious Tide, or some one constituting him the
authority for the nonce, has sneered at the English as
being a nation having twenty religions, and only one
sauce, — melted butter. A French commentator has added,
that we have nothing polished about us but our steel, and
that our only ripe fruit is baked apples. Guy Pantia
traces the alleged dislike of the French of his day for the
English, to the circumstance that the latter poured melted
butter over their roast veal. The French execration is
amusingly said to have been further directed against us, on
account of the declared barbarism of eating oyster-sauce
with rump-steak, and " poultice," as they cruelly charac-
terize "bread sauce," with pheasant. But, to return to
butter : — ^the spilling of it has more than once been eluci-
dative of character. When, in the days of the old regime,
an English servant accidentally let a drop or two of
melted butter fall upon the silken suit of a French petit-
maitre, the latter iadignantly declared that " blood and
butter were an Enghshman's food." The conclusion was
illogical, but the arguer was excited. Lord John Town-
shend manifested better temper and wit, when a similar

48 TABLE TBAITS.

accident tefell him, as he was dining at a friend's table,
where the coachman was the only servant in waiting.
" John," said my Lord, " you should never grease any-
thing hut your coach-wheels."

It was an old popular error that a pound of butter
might consist of any number of ounces. It is an equally
popular error, that a breakfast cannot be, unless bread and
butter be of it. Marcus Antoninus breakfasted on dry
biscuits ; and many a person of less rank, and higher worth,
is equally incapable of digesting any thing stronger. Solid
breakfasts are only fit for those who have much sohd
exercise to take after it ; otherwise heartburn may be
looked for. Avoid new bread and spongy roUs ; look on
muffins and crumpets as inventions of men of worse than
sanguinary principles, and hot buttered toast as of equally
wicked origin. Dry toast is the safest morning food,
perhaps, for persons of indifferent powers of digestion ; or
they may substitute for it the imperial fashion set by
Marcus Antoninus. Of liquids I may next speak ; and in
this our ancient friend, Tea, takes the precedence.

TEA.

The origin of tea is very satisfactorily accounted for
by the Indian mythologists. Darma, a Hindoo Prince,
went on a pilgrimage to China, vowing he would never
take rest by the way ; but he once feU asleep, and he was
so angry with himself, on awaking, that he cut off his
eye-lids, and flung them on the ground. They sprang
up in the form of tea shrubs ; and he who drinks of the
infusion thereof, imbibes the juice of the eye-lids of
Darma. Tea, however, is said to have been first used in
China as a corrective for bad water ; and that not at a
remote date.

TEA. 49

In the seventeenth century, half the physicians of
Holland published treatises in favour of tea. It was
hailed as a panacea, and the most moderate eulogizers
affirmed that two hundred cups a day might he drunk
without injury to the stomach of the drinker. In the
ninth century, tea was taken in China simply as a medi-
cine ; and it then had the repute of being a panacea.
The early Dutch physicians who so earnestly recommended
its use as a common beverage, met with strenuous opposi-
tion. France, Germany, and Scotland, in the persons of
Patin, Hahnemann, and Duncan, decried tea as an imperti-
nent novelty, and the vendors of it as immoral and
mercenary. Nor was Holland itself unanimous in- pane-
gyrizing the refreshing herb. Some, indeed, eulogized the
infusion as the fountain of health, if not of youth ; but
others again, and those of the Dutch faculty, indignantly
derided it as filthy "hay-water." Olearius, the German,
on the other hand, recognised its dietetic virtues as early
as 1133 ; while a Russian Ambassador, at about the same
period, refused a pound or two of it, offered him by the
Mogid as a present to the Czar, on the ground that the
gifb was neither useful nor agreeable.

The Dutch appear to have been the first who dis-
covered the value of the shrub, in a double sense. They
not only procured it for the sake of its virtues, but con-
trived to do so by a veiy profitable species of barter.
They exchanged with the Chinese a pound of sago for
three or four pounds of tea ; and it is very possible that
each party, preferring its own acquisition, looked on the
opposite party as duped.

Tea is supposed to have been first imported into England,
from Holland, in 1666, by Lords Arundel and Ossory.
We cannot be surprised that it was slow in acquiring
the popular fovour, if its original cost was, as it is said
to have been, 60*. per pound. But great uncertainty

50 TABLE TEAITS.

rests as well upon the period of introduction, as upon the
original importers, and the value of the merchandise.
One fact connected with it is well ascertained ; namely,
that European Companies had long traded with China
before they discovered the value and uses of tea.

It is said to have heen in favour at the Court of
Charles II., owing to the example of Catherine, his Queen,
who had been used to drink it in Portugal. Medical men
thought, at that time, that health could not be more
effectually promoted than by increasing the fluidity of the
blood ; and that the infusion of Indian tea was the best
means of attaining that object. In 1678, Bontekoe, a
Dutch physician, published a celebrated treatise in favour
of tea, and to his authority its general use in so many
parts of Europe is to be attributed.

The first tea-dealer was also a tobacconist, and sold the
two weeds of novelty together, or separately. His name
was Garway, (" Garraway's,") and his locale, Exchange-
alley. It was looked upon chiefly as a medicinal herb ;
and Garway, in the seventeenth century, not only " made
up prescriptions," in which tea was the sole ingredient,
but parcels for presents, and cups of the infusion for those
who resorted to his house to drink it over his counter.
Its price then varied from lis. to 50s. per pound. The
taking tea with a visitor was soon a domestic circumstance ;
and, towards the end of the century, Lord Clarendon and
Pere Couplet supped together, and had a cup of tea after
supper, an occurrence which is journalized by his Lordship
without any remark to lead us to suppose that it was an
extraordinary event.

Dr. Lettsom has written largely, and plagiarized unre-
servedly, on the subject of tea ; adding, as Mr. Disraeli
remarks, his own dry medical reflections to the sparkling
facts of others ; but he was the first, perhaps, who esta-
blished the unwholesomeness of green tea. He " distilled

TEA. 51

some green tea, injected three drachms of the very odorous
and pellucid water which he obtained, into the cavity of
the abdomen aud cellular membrane of a frog, hy which
he paralysed the animal. He applied it to the cavity
of the abdomen and ischiatic nerves of another, and the
frog died ; and this he thought proved green tea to be
im wholesome" — to the frogs, and so apphed, as it xm-
doubtedly was. Such experiments, however, are unsar
tisfactory. I^ux vomica, for instance, deadly poison to
man, may be taien, almost with impunity, by many ani-
mals.

The first brewers of tea were often sorely perplexed
with the preparation of the new mystery. " Mrs. Hutchin-
son's great grandmother was one of a party who sat down
to the first pound of tea that ever came into Penrith. It
was sent as a present, and without directions how to use
it. They boiled the whole at once in a bottle, and sat
down to eat the leaves with butter and salt, and they
wondered how any person could like such a diet."

Steele, in " The Funeral," laughs at the " cups which
cheer, but not inebriate." " Don't you see," says he,
" how they swallow gallons of the juice of tea, while their
own dock-leaves are trodden under foot ?"

"What Bishop Berkeley did with " Tar Water," when he
made his Essay thereupon a ground for a Dissertation on
the Trinity, Joseph WUliams — " the Christian merchant "
of the early and middle part of last century, whose biogra-
phy is well known to serious readers — did, when he wrote
to his friend Green upon the necessity of " setting the Lord
always before us." When treating of this subject, the
pious layman adverts to a present of that new thing
called " tea," which Green had sent him, and which had lost
some of its flavour in the transit. There is something
amusing in the half sensual, half spiritual way in which
worthy Joseph Williams mixes his Jeremiad upon tea
£ 2

52 TABLE TEAITS.

witli one upon human morals. " The tea," he says, " came
safe to hand, but it hath lost the elegant flavour it had
when we drank of it at Sherhome, owing, I suppose, to ,
its conveyance in paper, which, being very porous, easily
admits effluvia from other goods packed up with it, and
emits effluvia from the tea. Such are the moral ten-
dencies of evil communications among men, which nothing
will prevent, (Hke canisters for tea,) but taking to us the
whole armour of God. Had the tea been packed up with
cloves, mace, and cinnamon, it would have been tinctured
with these sweet spices ; so ' he that walks with wise men
shall be wise.' He that converses with heaven-bom souls,
whose conversation is in heaven, whose treasure and
whose hearts are there, wiU catch some sparks from their
holy fire ; but 'evil communications corrupt good manners.'
I have put the tea into a canister, and am told it will
recover its original flavour, as the pious soul which hath
received some iU impressions from vicious or vain con-
versation will, by retiring from the world, by communing
with his own heart, by heavenly meditation, and fervent
prayer, recover his spiritual ardoiu-." The simile, how-
ever, limps a little ; for if every man canistered himself,
and a good example, from the world, the wide-spreading
aroma of that example would never seductively insinuate
itself into the souls of men. It is by contact we brighten,
and sometimes suffer. We must not canister our virtue
as Mr. Williams did his tea : the latter was for selfish en-
joyment. A guinea may be kept for ever unstained by
the commerce of the world, in the very centre of the chest
of avarice ; but what good does it do there ? Let it cir-
culate merrily through the hundred hands of the giant
Industry, and there will be more profit than evil efiected
by the process. But good Joseph Williams would not
have agreed with us, and he would take his saintly similes
from traits of the table. " 0 that I may walk humbly,"

TEA. 53

he says, " and look on myself, when fullest of divine com-
munications, but as a driaking-glass without a foot, and
which, consequently, cannot stand of itself, nor retain
what may be put into it." A very tipsy-Uke simile !

I may be permitted to add that, after all, religion
happily proved stronger than tea, but not without stUl
stronger opposition ; and we are told by the disgusted
Connoisseur, that " persons of fashion cannot but lament
that the Sunday evening tea-drinkings in. Eanelagh were
laid aside, from a superstitious regard to rehgion." A
remark which shows how very poor a connoissev/r this
writer was in matters of propriety. Not, indeed, that diet
and divinity coiJd not be seated at the same table. On
Easter-day, for instance, the first dish that used to be placed
before the jubilant guests was a red-herring on horseback,
set in a corn salad. Some hundred and fifty years ago, too,
there was a semi-religious, semi-roystering club held at the
" Northern Ale-house in St. Paul's AUey," every member
of which was of the name of Adam. It was formed in
honour and remembrance of the first man. The honour
was more than Adam deserved ; for the first created man
not only<betrayed his trust, but he shabbily sought to
lay the responsibiUty upon the first woman. And as for
" remembrance," he has managed to survive even the
memory of the club founded by his namesakes, and long
since defunct. The members were hard drinkers, but not
of saffron posset, which Arabella, in " The Committee,"
recommends as " a very good drink against the heaviness
of the spirits." The Adamites mostly died, as the legend
says Adam himself did, of hereditary gout, — an assertion
which would seem to indicate that the author of it was of
Hibemian origin !

There are various passages of our poets which tend to
show that "tea" and "coffee" became, very early, fixed
social observances. Pope, writing, in 1715, of a lady who

54! TABLE TBAITS.

left town after the coronation of George I., says that she
went to the country —

" To part her time 'twixt reading and Bohea,
To muse, and spill her solitary tea ;
Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,
Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon."

At the same period, the more fortunate helles who
remained in town made of tea a means for other ends
than shortening time. Dr. Young, in his " Satires," says
of Memmia, that-r—

" Her two red lips affected zephyrs blow.
To cool the Bohea and inflame the beau ;
TVhile one white finger and a thumb conspire
To lift the cup and make the world admire."

Dr. Parr's delicate compliment is well known; hut I
may he pardoned, perhaps, for introducing it here. He
was not very partial to the Thea Sinensis, though lauded
so warmly hy a French writer, as "nostris gratissima
Musis ;" hut once being invited to take tea hy a lady, he,
with a mixture of wit and gallantry, exclaimed, ^ Ii"ec tea-
cum possum vivere, nee sine te!" The Christchm'ch men
at Oxford were remarkable, at an early period, for their
love of tea ; and, in reference to it, they were pleasantly
recommended to adopt as their motto : " Te veniente die,
te decedente notamus." In 1718, Pope draws an illustra-
tion from tea, when writing to Mr. Digby : " My Lady
Scudamore," he remarks jocosely, " from having rusticated
in your company too long, really behaves herseK scanda-
lously among us. She pretends to open her eyes for the
sake of seeing the sun, and to sleep because it is night ;
drinks tea at nine in the morning, and is thought to have
said her prayers before; talks, without any manner of
shame, of good books, and has not seen Gibber's play of

TEA. 55

'The Nonjuror.' " This is a pleasant picture of the
" good woman" of the last century. She drank tea at
nine in the morning, not sleeping on till noon, to be
aroused at last, like Belinda, by —

" Shock, who thought she slept too long,
Leap'd up and waked his mistress with his tougue."

Tea is little nutritious ; it is often injurious from being
drunk at too high a temperature, when the same quantity
of the fluid at a lower temperature would be beneficial.
It is astringent and narcotic ; but its effects are various
on various individuals, and the cup which refreshes and
invigorates one, depresses or unnaturally excites and
damages the digestive powers of others. Green tea can
in no case be useful, except medicinally, in cases where
there has been excessive fatigue of the mind or body;
and even thten the dose should be small. Tea, as a pro-
moter of digestion, or rather, as a comforter of the
stomach when the digestive process has been completed,
should not be taken earlier than from three to four hours
after the principal meal. Taken too early, it disturbs
digestion by arresting chymification, and by causing disten-
sion. The astringency of tea is diminished by adding
mUk, and its true taste more than its virtue is spoiled by
the addition of sugar.

These remarks are applicable to tea in its pure state,
and not to the adulterated messes which come from China,
or are made up in England. If sloe leaves here are made
to pass for Souchong, so also is many an unbroken chest
of " tea" landed, which is largely composed of leaves that
are not the least akin to the genuine shrub. Black teas
are converted into green, some say by means of a poisonous
dye, others by roasting on copper ; but I do not think
this process is extensively adopted. At one time the
chests were rendered heavy by an adulterated mixture of

56 TABLE TEAITS.

a considerable quantity of tea, and a not inconsiderable
quantity of earthy detritus, strongly impregnated witb
iron. But our searchers soon put a stop to this knavery.
They just dipped a powerful magnet into the chest,
stirred it about, and, when drawn out, the iron particles, if
any, were sure to be found adhering to the irresistible
"detective." I have heard that Lady Morgan's tea-
parties, in Dublin, were remarkable for the excellent
qualities both of the beverage and the company; and
also for her Ladyship's stereotyped joke, of " Sugar your-
selves, gentlemen, and I 'U mUk you all."

Tea-parties, I may observe in conclusion, are not confined
in China to festive occasions. Tea is solemnly drunk on
serious celebrations, with squibs to follow. Thus, for
instance, at the funeral of a Buddhist Priest, there is
thought taken for the living as well as for the dead, for the
appetites of mortals as well as for the gratification of the
gods. The latter are presented with various sorts of food,
save animal. It is placed on the altar, and it is eaten at
night by the deities, of course. AVhile the ceremonies pre-
liminary to the interment are proceeding, a servant enters
the temple, and hands tea round to the reverend gentlemen
who are ofiiciating ! The interment usually takes place in
the morning, and it is numerously attended ; but if, as the
long procession is advancing, the hour of breakfast should
happen to arrive, the corpse is suddenly dropped in the
highway, the entire assembly rush to their respective
homes, and not till they have consumed their tea and
toast, or whatever materials go to the constituting of a
Chinese dejeAner, do they return to carry the corse to its
final resting-place, and fire no end of squibs over it in
testimony of their afiliction. Which done, more refresh-
ment follows ; and perhaps some of the mourners retire to
Chinese taverns, where inviting placards promise them
" A cup of tea and a bird's nest for 4(?. ! "

corrEE. 57

COFFEE.

The English and French dispute the honour of being
the first introducers of coffee into Western Europe. The
Dutch assert that they assisted in this iatroduction ; and,
although coffee was not drunk at Rome, until long after
it had been known to, and tasted by, Italian travellers at
Constantinople, the Church looked with pleasure on a
beverage, one effect of which was to keep both Priests and
people awake.

An Arab author of the fifteenth century — Sherbaddin —
asserts, that the first man who drank coffee was a certaia
Muphti of Aden, who lived in the ninth century of the
Hegira, about a.d. 1500. The popular tradition is, that
the Superior of a Dervish community, observing the effects
of coffee-berries when eaten by some goats, rendering
them much more Hvely and skittish than before, pre-
scribed it for the brotherhood, in order to cure them of
drowsiness and indolence.

It was originally known by the name of caJiui or hauM, —
an orthography which comes near to that of the ingenious
Town-CounciUor of Leeds, who, writing out a biU of fare
for a public breakfast, contrived to speU " coffee " without
employing a single letter that occurs in that word, — to
wit, Teawphy !

Sandys, a traveller of the seventeenth century, gives it
no very attractive character. Good for digestion and
mirth, he allows it to be ; but he says that in taste as in
colour it is nearly as black as soot.

The coffee-houses of England take precedence of those
of France, though the latter have more enduringly
flourished. In 1652, a Greek, in the service of an Eng-
lish Turkey merchant, opened a house in London. " I
have discovered his hand-bill," says Mr. Disraeh, "in

58 TA3IE a?EAITS.

which he sets forth the -virtue of the coffee drink, first
pubhquely made and sold in England, hy Pasqna Bosee, of
St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, at the sign of his own head."
Mr. Peter Cunningham cites a MS. of Oldjs in his pos-
session, in which some fuller details of much iuterest are
given. Oldys says, " The first use of coffee in England
was known in 1657, when Mr. Daniel Edwards, a Turkey
merchant, brought from Smyrna to London one Pasqua
Rosee, a Eagusan youth, who prepared this driak for him
every morning. But the novelty thereof drawing too
much company to him, he allowed his said servant,
with another of his son-in-law's, to sell it publicly ; and
they set up the first coffee-house in London, in St.
Michael's Alley, Cornhill. But they separating, Pasqua
kept in the house; and he who had been his partner
obtained leave to pitch a tent, and sell the Uquor, in St.
Michael's church-yard." Aubrey, in his Anecdotes, states
that the first vendor of coffee in London was one Bowman,
coachman to a Turkey merchant, named Hodges, who
was the father-in-law of Edwards, and the partner of
Pasqua, who got into difficulties, partly by his not being
a freeman, and who left the country. Bowman was not
only patronized, but a magnificent contribution of one
thousand sixpences was presented to him, wherewith he
made great improvements in his coffee-house. Bowman
took an apprentice, (Paynter,) who soon learnt ' the
mystery, and in four years set up for himself The coffee-
houses soon became numerous : the principal were Farres',
the Eainbow, at the Inner-Temple Gate, and John's, in
Puller's Eents. " Sir Henry Blount," says Aubrey, " was
a great upholder of coffee, and a constant frequenter of
coffee-houses."

The frequenters of these places, however, were consi-
dered as belonging to the idle and dissipated classes ; and
the reputation was not altogether vmdeserved. Eespeet-

corrBE. 59

able people denounced the coffee-drinking evils, illns-
triously obscnre and loyal people dreaded the pohtics that
were discussed at the drinking, and tipsy satirists hurled
strong contempt and weak verse at the new-fangled
fashion of abandoning Canary wine for the Arabian infu-
sion. The fashion, however, extended rapidly ; the more
so, that cups were soon to be had at so low a price, that
the shops where they were sold went by the name of
" Penny Universities." The ladies, who were excluded from
public participation in the bitter enjoyment, made some
characteristic complaints against the male drinkers, and
intimated that the indulgence of coffee-drinking would in
time deteriorate, if not destroy, the human race ; but the
imbibers heeded not the complaint, their answer to which
was that of Beranger's gay marital philosopher : —

"Nous laisserioTis jinir le monde.
Si nosfemmes le voulaient bien."

While the ladies, through their poetical representatives,
were complaining, male philanthropists quickly discerned
the social uses of the cup ; and Sir Henry Blount
acknowledges, with grateful pleasure, that the custom,
on the part of labouring men and apprentices, of drinking
a cup of coffee in the morning, instead of their ordinary
matinal draught of beer or wine, was chiefly owing to
Sir James Muddiford, "who introduced the practice
hereof first in London."

The Government of the Stuarts, hating free discussion
and not particularly caring for wit, watched the coffee-
houses with much jealousy, and placed as much restriction
upon them as they possibly could strain the law to. The
vexatious proceeding did not secure the desired result;
and the coffee-house wits laughed at the Government.
The wits, however, were not always successful either in
their praise of, or satire against, coffee. Pepys, on the

60 TABLE TEAITS,

15th of October, 1667, went to the Duke's House, to see
the comedy of " Taruga's Wiles ; or, the Coffee-House,"
of which he says, " The most ridiculous, insipid play that
ever I saw in my life ; and glad we were that Betterton
had no part in it." But Pepys was probably not in the
true vein to decide critically that night ; for his pretty
n;iaid Willett was sitting at his side ; and his wife, who
was on the other, spoiled the effect of the play by her
remarks on the girl's " confidence." Perhaps one of the
most curious apologies for coffee-houses was that of
Aubrey, who declared that he should never have acquired
so extensive an acquaintance but for " the modern advan-
tages of coffee-houses in this great city, before which
men knew not how to be acquainted but with their own
relations and societies." And Aubrey, who has been
called the small Boswell of his day, " was a man who
had more acquaintances than friends."

Yemen is the accepted birth-place, if we may so speak,
of the coffee-tree, Pietro de la VaUe introduced it into
Italy, La Eoyne into Marseilles, and Thevenot brought it
with him to Paris. In 1643, a Levantine opened a
coffee-house in Paris, in the Place du Petit Chatelet ; but
it was Soleiman Aga, Turkish Ambassador in Paris, in
1689, who was the medium through which coffee found
its way into the realm of fashion. Had it been reaUy
what some have supposed it to have been, — ^the black
broth of the Lacedsemonians, — he could have made it
modish by his method of service. This was marked by
all the minute details of oriental fashion, — small cups
and foot-boys, gold-fringed napkins and pages, coffee
wreathing with smoke, and Ganymedes .wreathed with
garlands, the first aU aroma, and the hand-bearers all otto
of roses : the whole thing was too dazzling and dramatic
to escape adoption. But the intolerable vulgar would
imitate their betters, and coffee became as common at

COrFEB. 61

taverns as wine, beer, and smoking. It would have
inevitably been abandoned to coarse appetites only, but
for Frangois Procope, a Sicilian, who, in the Eue de
r Ancienne Comedie, exactly opposite to the old play-house
in the Faubourg St. Germain, opened an establishment
expressly for the sale of coffee, but with such innocent
additional articles as ices, lemonade, and the hke harm-
less appliances, to make pleasant the seasons in their
change. The Gqfe Frocope became the immediate resort
of all the wits, philosophers, and refined roues of Paris.
There Eousseau wrote or repeated the lines which brought
him into such frequent trouble. There Piron muttered
the verses with which the incitement of devils inspired
him. There Voltaire tried to rule supreme, but found
himself in frequent bitter contest with PaKssot and
Freron. The Cafe Frocope was the morning journal, the
foreign news-mart, the exchange, — literary, witty, and
emphatically charming. There Lamothe renewed the
contest between the ancient and modern, the classical
and the romantic, drama. There the brilliant Chevalier
de St. Georges gave lessons in fencing to the men of let-,
ters ; and thence Dorat addressed his amorous missives to
Mademoiselle Saunier. There Marmontel praised Clairon,
and the Marquis de Bievre tried his calembourgs ; and
there Duclos and Mercier made their sketches of society, at
once serious and sarcastic. The universal favour in which
coffee is stiU held in Paris, and the crowds which still
wait on " Andromaque," sufficiently behe the famous pror
phecy of Madame de Sevigne, that "coffee and Eacine
would have their day." The dark infusion reigns with-
out a rival, the demi-tagse follows dinner oftener than
"grace," Eachel helps to keep Eacine alive, and cafe', in
its turn, has the reputation of being one of the favourite
stimxJants of the great trage'ddenne.

With regard to the making of coffee, there is no doubt

62 TABLE TEAITS.

that the Turkish method of pounding the coffee in a
mortar is infinitely superior to grinding it in a mUl, as
with us. But after either method the process recom-
mended by M. Soyer may be advantageously adopted;
namely, " Put two ounces of ground coffee into a stew-
pan, which set upon the fire, stirring the coffee round
with a spoon until quite hot, then pour over a pint of
boiling water ; cover over closely for five minutes, pass it
through a cloth, warm again, and serve."

The chemist Laplace explained to Napoleon thd residts
of various methods of manipulation. "How is it. Sir,"
said the Emperor, " that a glass of water in which I melt
a, lump of sugar, always appears to me to be superior in
taste to one in which I put the same quantity of pow-
dered sugar ?" " Sire," said the sage, " there exist three
substances, whose elements are precisely the same ; namely,
sugar, gum, and starch. They only differ under certain
conditions, the secret of which Nature has reserved to
herself; and I believe that it is possible, that, by the
collision caused by the pestle, some of the portions of the
sugar pass into the condition of gum or starch, and
thence arises the result which has been observed."

Medical men are widely at issue as to the merits of
coffee. AU, however, are agreed that it stimulates the
brain, and banishes somnolency. Voltaire and Buffon
were great coffee-drinkers ; but I do not know that we are
authorized to attribute the lucidity of the one or the
harmony of the other to the habit in question. Ability
would be cheaply purchased if that were the case ; and
the "royal road" would have been discovered where it
had never been looked for.

The sleeplessness produced by coffee is not one of an
unpleasant character. It is simjily a painless vigilance ;
but, if often repeated, it may be exceedingly prejudicial.
Brillat de Savarin illustrates the power of coffee by

COITEE. 63

remarking, that a man may live many years who takes
two bottles of wine daily; but the same quantity of
strong coffee would soon make him imbecile, or drive him
iato a consumption.

Taken immediately after dinner, coffee aids the dys-
peptic, especially to digest fat and oily aliment, which,
without such stimulant, would undoubtedly create much
disturbance. The Turks drink it .to modify the effects of
opium. Cafe au lait, that is, three parts milk to one of
coffee, is the proper thing for breakfast ; but the addition
of milk to that taken after dinner is a cruelty to the
stomach. A Dutchman, named Nieudorff, is said to have
been the first who ventured on the experiment of mixing
milk with coffee. When he had the courage to do this,
the two liquids together were considered something of
such an abomination as we should now consider brown
sugar with oysters.

I must not omit to mention, that the favourite beverage
of Voltaire, at the Cafe Frocope, was "choca," — a mix-
ture of coffee (with milk) and chocolate. The Emperor
Napoleon was as fond of the same mixture as he was of
Chambertia; and, in truth, I do not know a draught
which so perfectly soothes and revives as that of hot,
well-frothed "choca."

Substances mixed with coffee, or substitutes for the
berry altogether, have been tried with various degrees of
success. Roasted acorns have been made to pass for it
when ground. There is more chicory than coffee con-
sumed at the present time in France ; and the infusion of
the lupin does duty for it at poor hearths in Flanders ;
as that of roasted rye (the nearest resemblance to coffee)
does in America. Experimentalists say, that an excellent
substitute for coffee may be made from asparagus ; and
Frankfort, alarmed lest the complications of the " Eastern
Question " should deprive it of the facilities for procuring

64 TABLE TEAITS.

the terry as heretofore, is gravely consulting as to wlie-
ther asparagus coffee may he a beverage likely to be
acceptable as a substitute for the mucli prized "demi-

CHOCOLATE.

' Peebinanb Coetez went to Mexico in searcb of gold ;
but the first discovery lie made was of chocolate. The
discovery was not welcomed ecclesiastically, as coffee was.
This new substance was considered a sort of wicked
luxury, at least for Monks, who were among the earliest
to adopt it, but who were solemnly warned against its
supposed peculiar effects. The moralists quite as eagerly
condemned it ; and in England Eoger North angrily
asserted, that " the use of coffee-houses seems much iiii-
proved by a new invention, called ' chocolate-houses,' for
the benefit of rooks and cullies of quahty, where gambling

is added to aU the rest, and the summons of W

seldom fails ; as if the devil had erected a new university,
and these were the colleges of its Professors, as well as his
schools of discipline." The Stuart jealousy of these
localities, where free discussion was amply enjoyed, seems
to have influenced the Attorney-General of James II. ;
for, although they may not have been frequented, he says,
by "the factious gentry he so much dreaded," he adds,
" This way of passing time might have been stopped at
first, before people had possessed themselves of some con-
venience from them of meeting for short dispatches, and
passing evenings with small expenses." Of what chiefly
recommended these places, the stem official thus made a
grievance.

Chocolate (or, as the Mexicans term it, chocolalt) is
the popular name for the seeds of the cocoa, or, more
correctly, the cacao, plant, in a prepared state, generally

CHOCOLATE. G5

witli sugar and cinnamon. The Mexicans improve the
flavour of the inferior sorts of cacao seeds by burying
them in the earth for a month, and allowing them to
ferment. The nutritious quality of either cacao or choco-
late is entirely owing to the oil or butter of cacao which
it contains. Cacao-nibs, the best form of taking this pro-
duction, are the seeds roughly crushed. When the seed
is crushed between rollers, the result is flake cacao.
Common cacao is the seed reduced to a paste, and pressed
into cakes. The cheap kinds of chocolate are said to be
largely adulterated with lard, sago, and red-lead, — a
pernicious mixture for healthy stomachs ; but what must
it be for weak stomachs craving for food at once nutri-
tious and easy of digestion ? The " patent " chocolates
of the shops are nothing more than various modes of
preparing the cacao seeds.

The ladies of Mexico are so excessively fond of choco-
late, that they not only take it several times during the
day, but they occasionally have it brought to them in
church, and during the service. A cup of good chocolate
may, indeed, afford the drinker strength and patience to
undergo a bad sermon. The Bishops opposed it for a
time, but they at length closed their eyes to 'he practice.
I am afraid there is no chance of the fashion being intro-
duced into England. The advantages would be acknow-
ledged ; but then there would be a savour of Popery
detected about it, that would inevitably cause its rejec-
tion. The Church herself found a boon in this exquisite
supporter of strength. The Monks took it of a morning
before celebrating Mass, even in Lent. The orthodox and
strong-stomached raised a dreadful cry at the scandal;
but Escobar metaphysically proved, that chocolate made
with water did not break a fast ; thus establishing the
ancient maxim, " JAquidum non fr<mgit jejunium."

Spain welcom.ed the gift of chocolate made herby.

66 TABIE TEAITS.

Mexico with as mncli enthiisiasm as she did that of gold
by Peru ; the metal she soon Bquandered, but chocolate is
stm to be found in abundance in the Peninsula : it is an
especial favourite with ladies and Monks, and it always
appears on occasions when courtesy requires that refresh-
ments be offered. The Spanish Monks sent presents
of it to their brethren in French monasteries ; and
Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip II. of Spain, when
she brought across the Pyrenees her hand, but not her
heart, to the unenergetio Louis XIII., brought a sup-
ply of chocolate therewith ; and henceforth it became an
estabHshed fact. In the days of the Eegency it was far
more commonly consumed than coffee ; for it was then
taken as an agreeable aliment, while coffee was stUl looked
upon as a somewhat strange beverage, but certainly akin
to luxury. In the opinion of Linnaeus it must have sur-
passed all other nutritious preparations, or that naturalist
would hardly have conferred upon it, as he did, the proud
name of Theohroma, " food for the gods 1 "

Invalids wiU do well to remember, that chocolate made
with vanilla is indigestible, and injurious to the nerves.
Indeed, there are few stomachs at all that can bear choco-
late as a daily meal. It is a highly concentrated aliment ;
and all such cease to act nutritiously if taken into constant
use.

We will now look into some of those famous resorts of
by-gone days, where coffee and chocolate were prepared,
and wit was bright and spontaneous.

THE OLD COPFEE-HOTJSES.

The " Grecian" appears to have been the oldest of the
hetter-known eoifee-houses, and to have lasted the longest.
It was opened by Constantine, a Grecian, "living in Thread-
needle-street, over against St. Christopher's Church," in
the early part of the last half of the seventeenth century.
Its career came to a close towards the middle of the nine-
teenth century ; namely, in 18413, when the Grecian Coffee-
house, then in Devereux-court, Strand, where it had
existed for very many years, was converted into the " Gre-
cian Chambers," or lodgings for bachelors.

Constantine not only sold " the right Turkey coffee
berry, or chocolate," but gave instructions how to " pre-
pare the said liquors gratis." The " Grecian " was the
resort rather of the learned than the dissipated. The
antiquarians sat at its tables ; and, despising the news
of the day, discussed the events of the Trojan war, and
similar lively, but remote, matters. The laborious trifling
was ridiculed by the satirists ; and it is clear that there
were some pedants as well as philosophers there. It
was a time when both sages and sciolists wore swords ;
and it is on record that two friendly scholars, sipping their
coffee at the " Grecian," became enemies in argument, the
subject of which was the accent of a Greek word. What-
ever the accent ought to have been, the quarrel was acute,
and its conclusion grave. The scholars rushed into Deve-
reux-court, drew their swords, and, as one was run through
r 2

68 TABLE TEAITS.

the body and killed on the spot, it is to he supposed that
he was necessarily wrong. But the duel was the strangest
method of settling a question in grammar that I ever
heard of. Still it was rather the scholars than the rakes
who patronized the " Grecian ;" and there were to he
found the Committee of the Eoyal Society, and Oxford
Professors, enjoying their leisure and hot cups, after philo-
sophical discussion and scientific lecturing ; and even the
Privy Council Board sometimes assembled there to take
coffee after Council.

The " coffee-houses," which were resorted to for mere
conversation as well as coffee, began on a first floor ; they
were the seed, as it were, whence has arisen the political
and exclusive " club" of the present day. The advantages
of association were first experienced in coffee-houses; but
at the same time was felt the annoyance caused by intru-
sive and unwelcome strangers. The club, with its bal-
lot-box to settle elections of members, was the natural
result.

WUliam Urwin's Coffee-house, known as " Will's," from
its owner's name, and recognised as the "Wits','' from its
company, was on the first floor of the house at the west
corner of Bow-street and Eussell-street, Covent Garden.
In the last half of the seventeenth century, it was at the
height of its good fortune and reputation. The shop
beneath it was kept by a woollen-draper.

Tom Brown says that a wit was set up at a small cost ;
he was made by " peeping once a day in at Will's," and
by relating " two or three second-hand sayings." It was
at Will's that Dryden " pedagogued" without restraint,
accepted flattery without a blush, and praised with happy
complacency the perfection of his own works. He was
the great attraction of the place, and his presence there of
an evening filled the room with admiring listeners, or
indiscreet adulators. Dryden had the good sense to retire

THE OLD COFFEE-HOUSES. 69

early, when tlie tables were full, and he knew he had
made a favourable impression, which the company might
improve in his absence. Addison, more given to jolly
fellowship, sat late with those who tarried to drink. Pepys,
recording his first visit, in February, 1663-4, says that
he stepped in on his way to fetch his wife, " where Dry den
the poet, (I knew at Cambridge,) and all the wits of the
town, and Harris the player, and Mr. Hoole of our Col-
lege. And had I had time then, as I could at other
times, it wiU be good coming thither ; for there I per-
ceive is very witty and pleasant discourse. But I could
not tarry ; and, as it was late, they were all ready to go
away."

The reign of Dryden at Will's was not, however, with-
out its pains. Occasionally, a daring stranger, like young
Lockier, raw from the country, would object to the dicta
of the despot. Thus, when Dryden praised his " Mac
riecknoe," as the first satire " written in heroics," the
future Dean timidly suggested that the"LutrLn" and
the " Secclda Bapita " were so written; and Dryden ac-
knowledged that his corrector was right. The London
beaux would have been, afraid, or incapable, of setting
Dryden right ; they were sufficiently happy if they were
but permitted to dip their fingers into the poet's snuff-
box, and, at a separate table, listen to the criticisms
uttered by the graver authorities who were seated roxmd
another, at the upper end of the room. Of the disputes
that there arose, " glorious John" was arbiter; for his
particular use a chair was especially reserved; therein
enthroned, he sat by the hearth or the balcony, according
to the season, and delivered judgments which were not
always final.

No man was better qualified to do so, for the " spe-
cialty" of Will's Coffee-house was poetry. Songs, epi-
grams, and satires, circulated from table to table; and

70 TABLE TEAITS.

the wits judged plays, even Dryden's, until the play-
wrights hegan to satirize the wits. "With Dryden, " Will's"
lost some of its dignity. Late hours, card-playing, and
politics ; poets more didactic in their verse, and essayists
more instructive in their prose, than in their daily prac-
tice ; " dissipateurs" like Addison, and peers who shared in
Addison's lower tastes, without either his talent or occa-
sional refinement, — spoiled the character of " Will's,"
where, by the way. Pope had heen introduced by Sir Charles
Wogan, though, years before, in his youth, he had been
proud to follow old Wycherley about from coffee-house to
cofiee-house ; and then "Button's" attracted the better
portion of the company, and left WiU's to the vulgar and
the witless.

" Button's " Coffee-house was so named from its original
proprietor, who had been a servant of the Countess of
Warwick, the wife of Addison. It was situated in Great
Eussell-street, on the south side, about two doors from
Covent Garden. What Dryden had been at " Will's,"
Addison was at " Button's." There, — after writing during
the morning at his house in St. James's Place, where
his breakfast-table was attended by such men as Steele,
BudgeU, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett,
with some of whom he generally dined at a tavern,
— he was to be found of an evening, untU the supper hour
called him and his companions to some other tavern,
where, if not at Button's, they made a night of it. Pope
was of the company for almost a year, but left it because
the late hours injured his health ; and furthermore, per-
haps, for the reason, that his irritable temper had rendered
him unpopular, and that he had so provoked Ambrose
Philips, that the latter suspended a birchen rod over
Pope's usual seat, in intimation of what the ordinary
occupant would get if he ventured into it. The Butto-
nians were famous for the fierceness of their criticism,

THE OIB COITEE-HOrSES. 71

but it appears to have been altogether a better organized
establishment than Will's ; for while the parish registers
show that the landlord of the latter was fined for misde-
meanour, the vestry-books of St. Paul (Covent Garden),
prove that Button paid " for two places in the pew No. 18,
on the south side of the north aisle, £2. 2s. ;" and charity
leads us to conclude that Daniel and his wife occupied
the places so paid for, and were orthodox as well as loyal.
The "Lion's Head" of the "Guardian," which was put
up at Button's, over the box destined to receive contribu-
tions for the editor, is now at Wobum, in the possession
of the Duke of Bedford.

Of cofifee-houses that went by the name of " Tom's"
there were three. At the one in Birchin-lane, Garrick
occasionally appeared among the young merchants ; and
Chatterton, before despair slew even ambition, more than
once dined. At the second house so called, in Devereux-
court, many of the scholars, critics, and scientific men of
the last century used to congregate. There Akenside
essayed to rule over the tables as Dryden had done at
"WUl's," and Addison at "Button's ;" but his imperious
rule was often overthrown by "flat rebeUion." The
"Tom's" was opposite "Button's," and stood on the
north side of Great EusseU-street, No. 17. It received
its name from the Christian appellation of its master,
Thomas West, who committed suicide in 1722. If guests
gained celebrity in the latter days at " WiU's" for writing
a "posie for a ring," so at "Tom's" Mr. Ince was held
in due respect, for the reason that he had composed a
solitary paper for the " Spectator." It was a place where
the tables were generally crowded from the time of Queen
Anne to that of George III. Seven hundred of the
nobility, foreign Ministers, gentry, and geniuses of the
age, subscribed a guinea each, in 1714, for the erection of
a card-room ; and this fact, with the additional one that,

72

TABIE TEAITS,

only four years later, an enlarged room for cards and con-
versation was constructed, may serve to show by what
sort of people, and for what particular purposes, "Tom's"
was patronized.

At the time that White's Chocolate-house was opened
at the bottom of St. James's-street, — ^the close of the last
century, — ^it was probably thought vulgar ; for there was a
garden attached, and it had a suburban air. At the
tables in the house or garden more than one highwayman
took his chocolate, or threw his main, before he quietly
mounted his horse and rode slowly down Piccadilly
towards Bagshot. Before the establishment was burned
down, in 1733, it was famous rather for intensity of
gaming than excellence of chocolate. It arose from its
ashes, and settled, at the top of the street, into a fixed-
ness of fashion that has never swerved. Gallantry, plea-
sure, and entertainment were the characteristics of the
place. The celebrated Lord Chesterfield there " gamed,
and pronounced witticisms among the boys of quality."
Steele dated all his love-news in the " Tatler" from
White's. It was stigmatized as "the common rendez-
vous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies ;" and bets
were laid to the effect that Sir William Burdett, one of
its members, would be the first Baronet who would be
hanged. The gambling went on till dawn of day ; and
Pelham, when Prime Minister, was not ashamed to divide
his time between his official table and the picquet-table
at White's. Selwyn, Kbe Chesterfield, enlivened the
room with his wit. As a sample of the spirit of betting
which prevailed, Walpole quotes " a good story made at
White's." A man dropped down dead at the door, and was
carried in ; the Club immediately made bets whether he
was dead or not, and, when they were going to bleed him,
the wagerers ifor his death interposed, and said it would
affect the fairness of the bet !

TKE OLD COrFEE-HOTJSES. 73

Some of the old rules of the houses are rich m " table
traits." Thus, in 1736, every memher was required to pay
an extra guinea a year " towards having a good cook."
The supper was on tahle at ten o'clock ; the bill at twelve.
In 1758, it was agreed that he who transgressed the
rules for balloting should pay the supper reckoning. In
1797 we find, " Dinner at 10s. 6d. per head, (malt hquor,
biscuits, oranges, apples, and oUves included,) to be on
table at sis o'clock; the biU to be brought at nine."
" That no hot suppers be provided, unless particularly
ordered ; and then be paid for at the rate of 8s. per head.
That in one of the rooms there be laid every night (from
the Queen's to the King's birthday) a table, with cold
meat, oysters, &c. Each person partaking thereof to pay
4s., malt liquors only included."

Colley Gibber was a member, but, as it would seem, an
honorary one only, who dined with the Manager of the
Club, and was tolerated afterwards by the company for
the sake of his wit. Mr. Cunningham 'states, that at the
supper given by the Club in 1814, at Burlington House,
to the AlUed Sovereigns, there were covers laid for 2,400
people, and that the cost was " £9,849. 2s. 6d." " Three
weeks after this, (July 6, 1814,) the Club gave a dinner
to the Duke of Wellington, which cost £2,840. 10s. 9d."
The dinner given, in the month of February of the pre-
sent year, to Prince George of Cambridge, was one not to
welcome a victorious warrior, but to cheer annntried,
about to go forth to show himself worthy of his spurs.
White's ceased to be an open Chocolate-house in 1736,
from which period it has been as private an establish-
ment as a Club can be said to be.

The politicians had their coffee-houses as well as the
wits. The " Cocoa Tree," in St. James's-street, was the
Tory house in the reign of Queen Anne. The " St.
James's" was the Whig house. It was a well-frequented

74 TABLE TEAITS.

house in the latter days of George II., when Gibbon
recorded his surprise at seeing a score or two of the
noblest and wealthiest in the land, seated in a noisy
coffee-room, at little tables covered by small napkins,
supping off cold meat or sandwiches, and finishing with
strong punch and confused politics.

The St. James's Coffee-house ranked Addison, Swift,
Steele, and, subsequently. Goldsmith and Garrick, among
its haiitues. It had a more solid practical reputation than
any of the other coffee-houses ; for within its walls Gold-
smith's poem of "Eetaliation" originated. But politics
was its " staple ;" and poor pohticians seem to have been
among its members, seeing that many of them were in
arrears with their subscriptions : but these were probably
the outer-room men ; for the magnates, who were accus-
tomed to sit and waitch the line of Boiirbon, within the
steam of the great coffee-pot, were doubtless punctual in
their payments ere they could have earned the privilege.
And yet their poetical acumen was often more correct
than their political discernment ; for while the company at
Button's ascribed the " Town Eclogues " to Gay, the coffee-
drinkers at St. James's were unanimous in giving them
to a lady of quality.

Of the coffee-houses of a second order, the "Bedford,"
in Covent Garden, was probably the first ; but, for good
fellowship, it equalled any of the more exclusive houses ;
for Garrick, and Quin, and Murphy, and Foote, were of
the company. Wit was the serious occupation of aU its
members ; and it never gave any of them serious trouble
to produce in abundance. Quin, above all, was brilliant
in the double achievements of Epicureanism and sparkling
repartee. Garrick, in allusion to the sentiments often
expressed here by his brother actor, wrote the epigram-
matic lines, supposed to be uttered by Quin, in reference
to a discussion on embalming the dead, and which will be

THE OLD COITEE-HOrSES. 75

found in a subsequent chapter, under the head of " Table
Traits of the last Century."

^sopus, the actor, who was to Cicero what Quin was
to George the Third, — he "taught the boy to speak," —
^sopus was as great an epicure, in his way, as Quin him-
self. It is related of him, that one day he dined off a
costly dish of birds, the whole of which, when Uving, had
been taught either to sing or speak. iEsopus was as fond
of such a dish as his fellow-comedian, Quin, was of mullet ;
for which, and for some other of his favourite morceaux,
he used to say that a man ought to have a swallow as
long as from London to Botany Bay, and palate aU the
way ! When the fish in question was in season, his first
inqidry of the servant who used to awaken him was, " Is
there any mullet ia the market this morning, John?"
and if John replied in the negative, his master's reported
rejoinder was, "Then call me at nine to-morrow, John."

The Bedford Coffee-house had its disadvantages, as
when bullies, like Tiger Eoach, endeavoured to hold
sovereignty over the members. But usurpers like the
Tiger were deposed as easily by the cane as by the sword ;
but such occurrences marred the peace of the coffee-house,
nevertheless. It was, indeed, a strange company that some-
times was to be found within these houses. At Batem's,
the City House, patronized by Blackmore, the brother of
Lord Southwell was to be found enacting the parasite,
and existing by the aid of men who thought his wit worth
paying for. Child's Coffee-house, St. Paul's Chittch-yard,
was patronized by the Clergy, who assembled there, espe-
cially the younger Clergy, in gowns, cassocks, and scarfs,
smoked till they were invisible, and obtained the hono-
rary appellation of "Doctor" from the waiters. Clerical
visitants were also to be found at the " Smyrna," in Pall
Mall. Swift was often there with Prior ; and the politics
of the day were so loudly discussed, that the chairmen

76 TABLE TBAITS.

and porters in waiting outside used to derive that sort of
edification therefrom which is now to be had in the cheap
weekly periodicals. " Garraway's" takes us once more
into the City. Garway, as the original proprietor was
called, was one of the earliest sellers of tea in London ;
and his house was frequented by nobles who had business
in the City, who attended the lotteries at his house, or
who wished to partake of his tea and coifee. Foreign
Bankers and Ministers patronized " Robin's ;" the buyers
and sellers of Stock collected at "Jonathan's;" and the
shipping interest went, as now, to " Lloyd's." All these
places were in full activity of business and cofiee-drinking
in the reign of Queen Anne. Finally, the lawyers
crowded "Squire's," in Fulwood's lients; and there, it
will be remembered. Sir Roger de Coverley smoked a pipe,
over a dish of coffee, with the Spectator. But enough
of these places, whose names are more familiar to many
of us than their whereabout, but whose connexion with
what may be called the table-life of past times gives me
warrant for the notice of them, with which, perhaps, I
have only troubled the reader. I will only add, that the
ceremony of serving chocolate was never such a solemnity
in England as in France. In the latter country, as late
as the days of Louis XVI., a "man of condition" required
no less than four footmen, each with two watches in his
fob, according to the fashion, to help him to take a single
cup of chocolate. One bore the tray, and one the choco-
late-pot, a third presented the cup, and a fourth stood in
waiting with a napkia! — and all this coil to carry a
morning draught to a poor wretch, whose red heels to his
shoes were symbols of the rank which gave him the pri-
vilege of being helpless.

The old coifee-houses were not simply resorts for the
critics, the poUticians, and the fine gentlemen. Gay,
writing to Congreve, in 1715, says, "Amidst clouds of

THE OLD COFFEE-IEOirSES. 77

tobacco, at a coffee-house, I write this letter. There is a
grand revolution at "Will's. Moira has quitted for a
coffee-house in the City ; and Titcomb is restored, to the
great joy of Cromwell, who was at a great loss for a person
to converse with upon the Fathers and church history.
The knowledge I gain from him is entirely in painting
and poetry ; and Mr. Pope owes all his skill in astronomy
to him and Mr. Whiston." Pope learnt his astronomy by
the assistance of what Moore calls, " the sun of the table ;"
for, adding a postscript to Gay's letter to Congreve, he
says, "I sit up tiU two o'clock, over Burgundy and
Champagne." Ten years before, the coffee-house and
London life had less charms for him. Witness the para-
graph in the letter to Wycherley, in 1705, to this effect :
" I have now changed the scene from town to country, —
from Will's Coffee-house to Windsor Forest. I found no
other difference than this betwixt the common town wits
and the downright country fools, — that the first are
partly in the wrong, with a little more flourish and
gaiety ; and the last, neither in the right nor the wrong,
but confirmed in a stupid settled medium, betwixt both."
But, ten years later than the period of Pope's postscript
to Congreve, in which he boasted of sitting over wine
during the "wee short hours ayont the twal'," as Bums
calls them, we find the boaster stricken. Swift, writing
to him, in 1726, remarks, " I always apprehend most for
you after a great dinner; for the least transgression of
yours, if it be only two bits and one sup more than yom*
stint, is a great debauch, for which you certainly pay
more than those sots who are carried drunk to bed."

In England, the chocolate and coffee-houses were not
confined to the metropolis and its rather rakish inhabit-
ants. The Universities had their coffee-houses, as London
had ; and the company there, albeit alvmni of the various
Colleges, do not appear to have been remarkable for refine-

78 TABLE TEAITS.

ment. Dr. Ewins, at Cambridge, in the last century,
acquired the ill-will hoth of Town and Gown for exer-
cising a sort of censorship over their conduct. According
to Cole, the Antiquaiy, they needed it ; for he says, with
especial allusion to the Undergraduates, that " they never
were more licentious, riotous, and dehauched. They often
broke the Doctor's windows," he adds, " as they said he
had been caught listening on their staircases and (at
their) doors." The Doctor, like his adversaries, was in
the habit of visiting the Union Coffee-house, opposite St.
Eadigund's (or Jesus) lane, — a fashionable rendezvous.
He was there one night about Christmas, 1771, or Janu-
ary, 1772, "when some FeUow-Commoners, who owed
him a grudge, sitting in the box near him, in order to
affront him, pretended to call their dog ' Squintum,' and fre-
quently repeated the name very loudly in the coffee-house ;
and, in their joviality, swore many oaths, and caressed
their dog. Dr. Ewin, as did his father, squinted very much,
as did Whitefield, the Methodist teacher, who was vul-
garly called !Dr. Squintum, from the blemish in his eyes.
Dr. Ewin was sufficiently mortified to be so affronted in
pubUc. However, he carefully marked down the number
of oaths sworn by these gentlemen, whom he made to pay
severely the penalty of five shiUings for each oath, which
amounted to a good round sum." The next week, ballad-
singers sang, in the streets of Cambridge, a ballad, which
they gave away to aU who would accept a copy, and from
which the following verses are extracted. They will
show — if nothing else — ^that the University coffee-house
poet was less elegant than Horace, and that the " well of
English" into which he had dipped was not altogether
"undefiled:"—

" Of all the blocldieads in the Town,

That strut and bully up and down,

And bring complaints against the Gown,

There 's none like Dr. Squintum.

THE OID COrrEE-HOirSES. 79

" With gimlet eyes and dapper wig,
TMs Justice thinis he looks so big :
A most infernal stupid gig

Is this same Dr. S^uintum.

" What pedlar can forbear to grin.
Before his Worship that has been,
To think what foUy lurks within

This Just Ass Dr. Squintmn? "

Old Rene d'Anjou used to say, that, as soon as a man
had breakfasted, it was his hounden duty to devote him-
self to the great business of the day, — ^think of dinner.
We mil in some wise follow the instructions given, —
first, however, saying a word or two upon French coffee-
houses, and then upon those who naturally take pre-
cedence of " dinners," — ^the cooks by whom dinners are
prepared.

THE FRENCH CAFES.

In the reign of Louis XV. there were not less than six
hundred cafes in Paris. London, at the same period, could
not count /^" many dozens. Under Louis Napoleon, the
cafes have reached to the amazing number of between
three and four thousand. All these establishments
acknowledge the Cafe' Procope as the founder of the
dynasty, although, indeed, there were coffee-vendors in
Paris before the time of the accomplished Sicilian. " Vix-
ervmt fortes ante Agamemnona.'"

The consumption of coffee in Paris, at the period of
the breaking out of the Eevolution, was something enor-
mous. The French West-Indian Islands furnished eighty
miUions of pounds annually, and this was irrespective of
what was derived from the East. The two sources toge-
ther were not sufficient to supply the kingdom. Thence
adulterations, fortunes to the adulterators, and that
supremacy of chicory, which has destroyed the weU-
eamed reputation of French coffee.

I have already spoken of the Cafe Procope, and here I
will only add an anecdote illustrative of the scenes that
sometimes occurred there, and of the national character
generally in the reign of Louis XV. One afternoon that
M. de Saint Foix was seated at his usual table, an officer
of the King's Body-Gruard entered, sat down, and ordered
"a; cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll," adding, "It wiU
serve me for a dinner!" At this Saint Foix remarked

THE FKENCH CAFES. 81

aloTid, that " a cup of coffee, witli milk, and a roll, was
a confoundedly poor dinner." The officer remonstrated ;
Saint Foix reiterated his remark, and again and again
declared, that nothing the gallant officer could say to the
contrary, would convince him. that a cup of coffee, with
milk, and a roll*, was not a confoundedly poor dinner.
Thereupon a challenge was given and accepted, and the
whole of the persons present adjourned as spectators of a
fight, which ended by Saint Foix receiving a wound in
the arm. " That is aU very well," said the wounded
comhatant ; " hut I call you to witness, gentlemen, that
I am still profoundly convinced, that a cup p--^offee, with
milk, and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner !" At this
moment, the principals were arrested, and carried before
the Duke de NoaiUes, in whose presence Saint Fois,
without waiting to be questioned, said, " Monseigneur, 1
had not the slightest intention of offending the gallant
officer, who, I doubt not, is an honourable man ; but
Tour Excellency can never prevent my asserting, that a
cup of coffee, with milk, and a roU, is a confoundedly
poor dinner." " Why, so it is," said the Duke. " Then
I am not in the wrong," remarked Saint Foix; "and a
cup of coffee," at these words Magistrates, delin-
quents, and auditory, burst into a roar of laughter, and
the antagonists became friends. It was a more bloodless
issue than that which occurred to Michel Lepelletier, in
later years, at the Cafi Fevrier. He was seated at din-
ner there, when an ex-ga/rde-du-corps, named Paris,
approached him, inquired if he were the Lepelletier who
had voted for the death of Louis XVI., and, receiving an
affirmative reply, drew forth a dagger, and swiftly slew
him on the spot.

Before Procope, the Armenian, Pascal, sold coffee at the
Fair of St. Germain, at three-halfpence a cup ; and "the
beverage was sung by the poet Thomas in terms not exactly

82 TABLE TEAITS,

like those with which DelUle suhsequently sang the virtues
of the tree. The Trench coffee-houses at once gained
the popularity to which they aspired. To Pascal suc-
ceeded Maliban, and then Gregoire opened his estahlish-
ment in the Eue Mazarin, in the vicinity of players and
play-goers. At the same time, there was a man in Paris,
called "the lame Candiot," who carried ready-made coffee
about from door to door, and sold it for a penny per cup,
sugar included. The cafe at the foot of the bridge of
Notre-Dame was founded by Joseph ; that at the foot of
the bridge of St. Michel, by Etienne ; and both of these
are more ancient than that of Procope, who was the first,
however, who made a fortune by his speculation. The
Qwaj & Z'^coZe had its establishment, (the Cafe Manoury,)
which I beUeve stiU exists, as does the Cafe de la Hegence,
which dates from the time of the Regent Duke of Orleans,
and where Rousseau used to play at chess, and appear in
his Armenian costume. It was also frequented, incog., by
the Emperor Joseph. The oldest cafe' in the Palais Royal
is the celebrated Cafe de IFoy, so called' from the name of
its founder. Carl Vernet was one of its most constant
patrons. He was there on one occasion, when some
repairs were going on, and, in his impatience, he flung a
wet colouring brush from him, which struck the ceiling
and left a spot. He immediately ascended the ladder,
and with a touch of his finger converted the stain into a
swallow ; and his handy-work was still to be seen on the
ceiling, when I was last in Paris. It was before the Ccfe
de Foy that Camille Desmouhns harangued the mob, ia
July, 1789, with such effect, that they took up arms,
destroyed the BastUle, and inaugurated the Revolution.

The Cafe' de Valois vnR long be remembered for its
aristocratic character ; that of Montansier, on the other
hand, was remarkable for the coarseness of its frequenters,
and the violence with which they discussed politics,

THE rEENCH CAFES. 83

especially at tte period of the Eestoration. The Gaf4 du
Caveau was more joyously noisy with its gay artists and
broad songs. The Empire brought two establishments
into popular favour, both of which appealed to the lovers
of beauty as well as of coffee. The first was the Caf/dw
Bosquet, and the second the Cafe des Mille Golonnes.
Each was celebrated for the magnificent attractions of
the presiding lady, — the telle limonadiere, as she was at
first called, or the dame du comptoir, as refinement chose
to name her. Madame Eomain, at the Mille Golonnes,
had a longer reign than her rival ; and the lady was alto-
gether a more remarkable person. In the reign of Louis
XVIII., her seat was composed of the throne of Jerome,
King of Westphalia, — which was sold by aiiction on the
baiikruptcy of his Majesty. Madame Eomain descended
from it, like a weary Queen, to take refuge in a nunnery ;
and, curiously enough, the ex- King has recovered his
"throne," which now figures, in the reduced aspect of a
simple arm-chair, in the salon of his residence at the
Palais Eoyal. After the abdication of Madame Eomain,
the Mille Golonnes endeavoured to secure success by very
meretricious means. Girls of a brasen quality of beauty
bore through the apartments flaming bowls of punch,
usually taken after the coffee ; and the beverage and the
bearers were equally bad.

As the Cafe Chretien was once thoroughly Jacobin, so
the Cafe Lemblin became entirely Imperial, and was the
focus of the Opposition after the return of the Bourbons.
It was famous for its chocolate, as well as for its coffee.
When the AlUes were at Paris, it was hardly safe for the
officers to enter the Cafe Lemblin, and many scenes of
violence are described as having occurred there, and many a
duel was fought with fatal effect, after a co/b dispute between
French and foreign officers, — and all for national honour.
The Bourbon officers were far more insulting in the cafes
G 2

84 TABIiE TEAITS,

to tte ex-imperial " braves," than the latter were to the
iavading Captains, — and they generally paid dearly for their
temeritj-. Finally, — for to name all the cafes in Paris,
would require an encyclopsedia, — it is worthy of notice
that Tortoni's, which is now a grave adjunct to the Bov/rse,
first achieved success by the opposite process of biUiard-
playing. A broken-down provincial advocate, Spolar of
Eennes, came to Paris with a bad character, and a capital
cue ; and the latter he handled so wonderfully at the Cafe
Tortoni, that all Paris went to witness his feats. Talley-
rand patronized him, backed his playing, and gained no
inconsiderable sum by the cue-driving of Spolar, whose star
culminated when he was appointed " Professor of BiDiards
to Queen Hortense," — an appointment which sounds
strange, but which was thought natural enough at the
time ; and, considering all things, so it was.

There is one feature in the French cafe's which strikes
an observer as he first contemplates it. I allude to the
intensity, gravity, and extent of the domino-playing. A
quartett party wUl spend half the evening at this mystery,
with nothing to enliven it but the gentlest of conversa-
tion, and the lightest of beer, or a simple petit verre.
The Government wisely thinks that a grave domino-
player can be given to neither immorality nor conspiracies.
But a British, Government proudly scorns to tolerate such
insipidities in Britons. British tradesmen, at the end of
the day, may be perfectly idle, spout blasphemy, and get
as drunk as they please, in any London tavern, provided
they do not therewith break the peace ; hut, let the
reprobates only remain obstinately sober, and play at
dominoes, then they ofiend the immaculate justice of
Justices, and landlords and players are liable to be fined.
So, on Sabbath nights, the working-classes have thrown
open to their edification the gin-palaces, which invite not
in vain ; but if one of these same classes should, on the

THE lEESrCH CAPES. 85

same Simday evening, knock at the religiously-closed door
of a so-called free library, tlie secretary's maid who
answers the appeal would be pale with horror at the
atrocity of the applicant. And what is the bewildered
Briton to do ? He looks in at church, where, if there be
a few free seats, they have a look about them so as to
make him understand that he is in his fustian, and that
he and the miserable sinners in their fine cloth are not on
an equality in the house of God ; and so he turns sigh-
ingly away, and goes where the law allows him, — to the
house of gin.

But, leaving the further consideration of these matters
to my readers, let us now address ourselves to the sketching
of a class whose most illustrious members have borne
witness to their own excellency, not exactly according to
the fashion spoken of by Shakspeare ; namely, by putting
a strange face on their own perfection.

THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART.

It is an incontestable fact, that lie wLo lives soberly
does not depend upon Ms cook for the pleasure wHch he
derives from his repast. Nevertheless, the cook is one of
the most important of personages ; and even appetite,
without him, would not he of the value that it is at
present. A great wrtiste knows his vocation. When the
cook of Louis XVIII. was reproached, hy His Majesty's
Physician, with ruining the royal health by savoury juices,
the dignitary of the kitchen sententiously remarked, that
it was the office of the cook to supply His Majesty with
pleasant dishes, and that it was the duty of the doctor to
enable the King to digest them. The division of labour,
and the responsibilities of office, could not have been better
defined.

From old times the cook has had a proper sense of the
solemn importance of his wonderful art. The Goquus
Gloriosws, in a fragment of Philemon, shows us what
these artists were in the very olden time. He swears by
Minerva that he is dehghted at his success, and that he
cooked a fish so exquisitely, that it returned him
admiring and grateful looks from the frying-pan ! He
had not covered it with grated cheese, not disguised it
with sauce ; but he had treated it with such daintiness
and dehcacy, that, even when fully cooked, it lay on the
dish as fresh-looking as if it had just been taken from the
lake. This result seems to have been a rarity ; for, when
the fish was served up at table, the delighted guests tore

THE HfCrENT COOK, AUD HIS AET. 87

it from one another, and a running struggle was kept up
around the hoard to get possession of this exquisitely
prepared morceau. "And yet," says the cook, "I had
nothing hetter to exhibit my talent upon than a wretched
river fish, nourished in mud. But, 0 Jupiter Saviour ! if
I had only had at my disposal some of the fish of Attica
or Argos, or a conger from pleasant Sicyon, like those
which Neptune serves to the gods in. Olympus, why, the
guests would have thought they had become divinities
themselves. Yes," adds the culinary boaster, "I think I
may say that I have discovered the principle of immor-
tality, and that the odour of my dishes would recall life
into the nostrils of the very dead." The resonant vaunt
is not unlike that of Bechamel, who said that, with the
sauce that he had invented, a man would experience
nothing but dehght in eating his own grandfather !

Hegesippus further illustrates the vanity of the genus
coquorum of his days. In a dialogue between Syrus and
his chef, the master declares that the culinary art appears
to have reached its limit, and that he would fain hear
something novel upon the subject. The cook's reply
admits us to an insight into ancient manners. "I am
not one of those fellows," says the personage in question,
" who are content to suppose that they learn their art by
wearing an apron for a couple of years. My study of the
art has not been superficial : it has been the work of my
life ; and I have learned the use and appliances of every
herb that grows — for kitchen purposes. But I especially
shine in getting up funeral dinners. When the mourners
have returned from the doleful ceremony, it is I who
introduce them to the mitigated affiction department.
While they are yet in their mourning attire, I hffc the
lids of mj kettles, and straightway the weepers begin to
laugh. They sit down with their senses so enchanted,
that every guest fancies himself at a wedding. If I can

S» TASIiE TEAITS.

only have all I require, Syrus," adds the artist, " if my
kitchen be only properly furnished, you will see renewed
the scenes which used to take place on the coasts fre-
quented by the Syrens. It will he impossible, for any
one to pass the door ; all who scent the process will be
compelled, despite themselves, to stop. There they will
stand, mute, open-mouthed, and nostrils extended ; nor
will it be possible to make them ' move on,' unless the
police, coming to their aid, shut out the irresistible scent
by plugging their noses."

Posidippus shows us a classical master-cook instructing
his pupils. Leucon is the name of the teacher ; and the
first truth he impresses on his young friend is, that the
most precious sauce for the purpose of a cook is impu-
dence. " Boast away," he says, " and never be tired of
it." For, as he logically remarks, " if there be many a
Captain under whose dragon-embossed cuirass lies a poor
hare, why should not we, who kill hares, pass for better
than we are, like the Captains?" "A modest cook must
be looked on," he says, " as a contradiction in nature.
If he be hired out to cook a dinner in another man's
house, he will only get considered in proportion to his
impudence and overbearing conduct. If he be quiet and
modest, he will be held as a pitiful cook."

Alexis, another artist, takes other and higher ground.
He says, that in all the arts the resulting pleasm-e does ,
not depend solely on those who exercise the art ; there
must be others who possess the science of enjoyment.
This is true ; and Alexis further adds, that the guest who
keeps a dinner waiting, or a master who suddenly demands
it before its time, are alike enemies to the art which
Alexis professes.

The earthly paradise of the early cooks was, unques-
tionably, among the Sybarites, — ^the people to whom the
crumpling of a rose under the side on which they lay,

THE A^^CIENT COOK, AND HIS AET. 89

gave exquisite pain. They were as self-luxurious as though
the world was made for them alone, and they and the
world were intended to last for ever. They would not
admit into their city any persons whose professions
entailed noise in the practice of them : the trunkmaker at
the corner of St. Paul's would have been flogged to death
with thistle-down, if he had carried on his trade in
Sybaris for an hour, and if a Sybarite could have been
found with energy enough to wield the instrument of
execution ! The crowing of one of the proscribed race of
cocks once put all the gentlemen of the city into fits ; and,
on another occasion, a Sybarite telling a friend how his
nerves had been shaken by hearing the tools of some
labouring men in another country strike against each
other, at their work, the friend was so overcome, that
he merely exclaimed, "Good gracious!" and fainted
away.

Athenaeus, borrowing, if I remember rightly, from one
of the authors whose works were in that Alexandrian
library, the destruction of which by the Caliph Omar, Dr.
Gumming tells us in his " Finger of God," is a circum-
stance at which he is rather glad than sorry, — Athenaeus
mentions the visit of a Sybarite to Sparta, where he was
invited to one of the public dinners, at which the citizens
ate very black broth, in common, out of wooden bowls.
Having tasted the national diet, he feebly uttered the Sy-
baritic expression for " Stap my vitals !" and convulsively
remarked, that " he no longer wondered why the Lacedae-
monians sought death in battle, seeing that such a fate
was preferable to life with such broth !"

Certainly the public repasts of the Sybarites were of
another quality. The giver of such repasts was enrolled
among the benefactors of their coimtry, and the cook who
had distinguished himself was invested with a golden
crown, and an opera ticket ; that is, free admission to those

90 TABLE TEAITS.

public games where hired dancers voluptuously perverted
time and the human form divine.

I am afraid that all cooks in remote ages enjoyed but
an indiiferent reputation, and thoroughly deserved what
they enjoyed. The comic Dionysius introduces one of
the succulent brotherhood, impressing upon a young
apprentice the propriety of stealing in houses where they
were hired to cook dinners. The instruction is worthy
of Profesfsor Pagan of the Saffron-HOl University. " What-
ever you can prig," says the elder rogue, " belongs to
yourself, as long as you are in the house. When you get
past the porter into the street, it then becomes my pro-
perty. So fake away ! (BaSife SeDp" fijua,) and look out for
unconnected trifles."

And yet Athenseus asserts that nothing has so power-
fully contributed to instil piety into the souls of men, as
good cookery ! His proof is, that when men devoured each
other, they were beasts, — ^which is a self-evident proposi-
tion; but that- when they took to cooked meats, and
were particular with regard to these, why, then alone they
began to live cleanly, — which is a proposition by no means
so self-evident. In his opinion, a man to be supremely
happy only needed the gift of Ceres to Pandora, — a good
appetite, and an irreproachable indigestion. These are,
doubtless, great portions of happiness ; and if felicity can
do without them,-^which is questionable, — where they are
not, comfort is absent, and a good conscience is hardly a
sufficient compensation.

If Sybaris was the paradise of cooks, Lacedaemon was
their purgatory. They were blamed if men grew fat on
their diet, and plump children were legally condemned to
get spare again upon their gruel. The Eomans, again,
restored the cook to his proper place in society. He
might be still a slave, and so were greater men than he ; but
he was the confidant of his master, and there were not a

THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART. 01

few who would have exchanged their liberty for such a
post and chains. And who dare affirm that the coquus
was not an officer of distinction ? He who knows how to
prepare food for digestion and delight, is a greater man, ,
in one particular at least, than Achilles, who could go no
farther in culinary science than turning the spit ; than
Ulysses, who could light fires and lay cloths with the dex-
terity of a Frankfort waiter ; or than Patroclus, who could
draw wine and drink it, but who knew no more how to
make a stew, than he did how to solve the logarithms of
Napier.

When it is asserted that it was Cadmus, the grand-
father of Bacchus, who first taught men how to eat as
civiEzed beings should, it is thereby further intimated
that good eating should be followed by good drinking.

We have heard of cooks in monasteries who made dis-
sertations on eternal flames by the heat of their own fires :
so Timachidas, of Rhodes, made patties and poetry at
the same stove, and both after a fashion to please their
several admirers. Artemidorus was the Dr. Johnson of
his own art, and wrote a Kitchen Lexicon for the benefit
of students. Sicily especially was celebrated for its lite-
rary cooks, and Mithoecus wrote a treatise on the art;
while Archestratus, the Syracusan, looking into causes
and efiects, meditated on stomachs as well as sauces, and
first showed how digestion might be taught to wait on
appetite. Then theoretical laymen came in to the aid of
the practical cook, and gastronomists hit upon all sorts
of strange 'ideas to help them to renewed enjoyments.
Pithyllus, for instance, invented a sheath for the tongue,
in order that he might swallow the hottest viands faster
than other guests, who wisely preferred rather to slowly
please the palate than suddenly satisfy the stomach. It
is of Pithyllus the Dainty, that it is related how, after
meals, he used to clean his tongue by rubbing it with a

92 TABLE TEAITS.

piece of rough fish-skin ; and his taking up hot viands
with his hand, like that of Gotz von Berlichingen, encased
in a glove, is cited as proof that the Greeks used no forks.
The spoons of the Romans had a pointed end, at the
extremity of the handle, for the purpose of picking fish
from the sheU.

Then came the age when, if men had not appetites of
nature's making, they were made for them by the cooks ;
and the latter, in return, were crowned with flowers by
the guests who had eaten largely, and had no fears of indi-
gestion. The inventor of a new dish had a patent for its
exclusive preparation for a year. But ere that time it
had probably been forgotten in something more novel dis-
covered by a Sicilian rival ; for the Greeks looked on
Sicily as the Parisians of the last century used to look
on Languedoc, — as the only place on earth -where cooks
were bom and bred, and were worth the paying. The
artists of both countries, and of the opposite ages men-
tioned, were especially skilled in the preparation of mate-
rials which were made to appear the things they were
not; and a seemingly grand dinner of fish, flesh, and
fowl, was really fashioned out of the supplies furnished
by the kitchen garden. The Greeks, however, never
descended to the bad taste of which the diarists of the
last century show the French to have been guilty ; namely,
in having wooden joints, carved and painted, placed upon
their tables for show. Artificial flowers may be tolerated,
but an artificial sirloin, made of a block of deal, would be
very intolerable board indeed, particularly to the hungry
guests, who saw the seemingly liberal fare, but who could
make very little of the deal before them.

In Sicily, the goddess of good cheer, Adephagia, had
her especial altars, and thence, perhaps, the estimation in
which the SicUian cooks were held, who prayed to her for
inspiration. Her ministers were paid salaries as rich as

THE AirCIENT COOK, A2JD HIS AET, 93

the sauces tbey invented. Something like £800 per
annum formed the honorarium of the learned and juicy
gentleman. But he was not always to be had, even at
that price ; and the disgusted Languedocien who would
not remain in the cuisine of the Duke of Richmond, when
Governor of Ireland, for the sufficient reason that there
was no Opera in Dublin, had his prototype among his
Sicilian predecessors. The jealousy of the culinary bonds-
man in Greek households against the free cook from
SicUy, must have been sometimes deadly in its results.

The best-feed cook on record is the happy mortal to
whom his master Antony gave a city, because he had
cooked a repast which had caUed forth encomium from
that dreadful jade, Cleopatra.

But money was the last thing thought of by the
wearied epicures of Rome, especially when what they gave
belonged to somebody else. When Lucvillus spent £1,000
sterling on a snug dinner for three, — ^himself, Csesar, and
Pompey, — he doubtless spent his creditors' money; at
least, extravagant people generally do. Claudius dined
often with six hundred guests, and the Roman people
paid the cooks. The dinners of Vitellius cost that sacri-
legious feeder upwards of £3,000 each, but the bUls were
discharged by a levy on the public pocket. When Tibe-
rius ordered several thousands sterUng to be bestowed on
the author of a piece wherein every thing eatable was
made to speak wittily, the author was really paid out of
the popular pocket ; and when Geta insisted on having
as many courses at each repast as there were letters in
the alphabet, and all the viands at each course so named
that their initials should be the same as that of the course
itself, he was the last person who troubled himself about
the payment for such extravagance.

The cooks of such epicures must necessarily, however,
have been as despotic in the kitchen as their lord was in

94! TABLE TEAITS.

tte saloon. The slaves there, who hurried to and fro, bear-
ing their tributes of good things from the market-place,
or distributing them according to his bidding, obeyed
the cook's very nod, nay, anticipated his very wishes.
They were, in fact, the ministers of an awful Sovereign.
The cook was their Lord paramount. The stewards pos-
sessed no little power ; but when the fires were lighted,
and the dinner had to be thought of, the head cook was
the kitchen Jupiter; and when he spoke, obedience,
silence, and trembling followed upon his word.

From his raised platform, the Archimagirus, as he
was called, could overlook aU the preparations, and with
his tremendous spoon of office he could break the heads-
of his least skilful disciples, and taste the sauces seething
in the remotest saucepans. The effect must have been
quite pantomimic ; and to complete it, there was only
wanted a crash of discordant music to accompany the
rapid descent of the gigantic spoon upon the skuU or
ribs of an offender. The work was done in presence of
the gods, and scullions blew the fires under the gaze
of the Lares, — sooty divinities to whom, the legend
says, inferior cooks were sometimes sacrificed in the
month of December. "But," as Othello says, "that's a
fable!"

Great Roman kitchens were as well worth seeing, and
perhaps were as often inspected by the curious and privi-
leged, as that of the Reform Club. "Order reigned"
there quite as much as it did, according to Marshal
Sebastiani, at Warsaw, amid the most abject slavery.
Art and costliness were lavished upon the vessels, but the
human beings there were exactly the things that were
made the least account of. ,

No doubt that the triumph of the art of the cook con-
sisted in serving up an entire pig at once roasted and
boiled. The elder Disraeli has shown from Archestratus

THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS AUT. 95

how this was done. " The animal had heen bled to death
by a wound under the shoulder, whence, after copious
eSusion, the master-cook extracted the entrails, washed
them with wine, and hanged the animal by the feet. He
crammed down the throat the stuffings already prepared.
Then, covering the half of the pig with a paste of barley
thickened with wine and oil, he put it in a small oven, or
on a heated table of brass, where it was gently roasted
with all due care. When the skin was browned, he boiled
the other side, and then, taking away the barley paste, the
pig was served up, at once boiled and roasted." And such
was the way by which the best of cooks spoiled the best
of pigs.

According to Plautus, cooks alone were privileged in
the old days to carry knives in their girdles. In the
" Aulularia" old EueUo says to Congrio, the cook, "Adtres
virosjam ego defer am tuicm nomenj" — " I 'U go and inform
against you to the Magistrates." " Why so ? " asks Con-
grio. " Because you carry a knife,' ' — " Quia cultrum Tiabes."
"Well," says the artist, standing on his rights, " cocum
decet,' ' " it is the sign of my profession.' ' From another of
the many cooks of Plautus we learn, in the "Mencschmei,"
that, when a parasite was at table, his appetite was reck-
oned as equivalent to that of eight guests ; and when
Cylindrus is ordered to prepare a dinner for Mensechmus,
his "lady," and the official parasite, "Then," says the
cook, " that 's as good as ten ; for your parasite does the
work of eight : " —

" Jam isti sunt decern.
Nam parasitus octo hominum munus facile fungitur."

The musicians would appear to have Uved as pleasantly
as the parasites. Simo remarks to Tranio, in the " Mostel-
laria," that he lives on the best the cooks and vintners
caai procure for him, — a real fiddler's destiny : —

06 TABLE TEAIT3.

" Musice hercle agitis atatem : ita ut vos decet.
Vino et victu, piscata prole electili.

Stalino complains in the " Casina," that, clever as cooks
are, they cannot put a little essence of love into all their
dishes, — a sauce, he says, that would please everybody.
Their reputation in Rome for steahng was much the same
as that enjoyed hy their Grecian brethren. The scene of
the "Casina," indeed, is in Athens ; but Olympio utters a
Eoman sentiment when he says, that cooks use their
hands as much for larceny as cookery, and that wherever
they are they bring double ruin, through extravagance
and robbery, upon their masters : " UM sunt, dwplid damno
dominos multant." This is further proved by the speech of
Upidicus, in the comedy so called, where that slave-cook
speaks of his master's purse as if it were game, to disem-
bowel which, he says, he wiU. use his professional knife -. —

" Acutttm'cuHrum habeo, sends qui exenterem

We learn something of the pay of a cook from a speech
of one of the craft, in the '' JPseudolus." Ballio, seeing a
single practitioner remaining in the square to be hired,
asks how it is that he has not been engaged. " Mloqwar"
says the cook, " here is the reason : —

" He who, now-a-days, comes here to hire cooks.
No longer seeks the best, that is, the dearest.
But some poor spoil-sauce who for nothing works.
Therefore you see me here alone tQ-da,y.
A poor drachma hath my brethren purchased ;
But under a crown I cook a dish for no man.
For 'twixt the common herd and me, you see.
There is a diff'rence : they into a dish
Hing whole meadows, and the guests they treat. Sir,
As though they were but oxen out at grass.
Herbs season they with herbs, and grass with grass ;
And in the mess, garlic, coriander, fennel.

THE ANOIUNT COOK, AST) HIS AET. 07

Sorrel, rochet, beet-root, leeks, and greens,
AH go together, with a pound of benzoin.
And mustard ditto, that compels the tears
Prom out the eyes of those that have to mix it.
* * * * *

If men are short-lived now, the reason 's plain :
They put death into their stomachs, and so
Of indigestion and bad cookery die.
Their sauces but to think of, makes me shudder ;
Yet men will eat what asses would not bend to.
*****

'Who of my dishes eats, obtains at least

Two hundred happy years of life reuew'd.

I season Neptune's fishes with a juice

Made up of CicUindrum, Muscadel,

Sipolindrum, and Sancapatides.

The odour of my mutton, nicely stuffed

"With Cicimaudrum, Nappalopsides,

And of Cataractaria a pinch,

Teeds Jupiter himself, who, when I rest.

Sleeps on Olympus, sad and supperless.

As for my potions, he who deeply drinks.

Gulps with the draught the gift of endless youth."

Finally, after inventing the above names unpronounce-
atle of sauces that do not exist, the boaster adds, that his
fee is a crown, provided he is not overlooked ; but that if
there be supervision to check him in his perquisites, he is
not to be hired under a mina : — ■

" Si credis, nummos ; si non, ne mina quidem I "

I do not know if cooks more especially Tised different
fingers in mingling their sauces, according as they were
employed on wedding banquets, martial feasts, senatorial
entertainments, al-fresco d^jeAners, or commercial suppers ;
but certain it is, that the fingers were sacred to diverse
deities. The thumb was devoted to Venus, the index
finger to Mars, the longest finger to Saturn, the next to
the Sun, and the little finger to Mercury.

H

98 TABIE TEAITS.

I conclude with a remark that I hope will be gratify-
ing to all culinary artists who respect themselves and
their calling, and who are anxious to prove that their
vocation is of ancient and honourable descent. Cadmus,
who introduced letters into Greece, had formerly been
cook to the King of Sidon. Thus learning ascended to
us from the kitchen ; and to the ex-cook of the King of
Sidon we perhaps owe aU the epics that have ever been
written. By this genealogy, even "Paradise Lost " may
be traced to the patties of Cadmus. But cooks in England
may boast of a nohlesse de cuisine, which dates from the
Norman Conquest. When WiUiam, who wooed his wife
Matilda by knocking her down, had established himself
in England, he gave a banquet, at which his cook, Tezelin,
served a new white soup of such exquisite flavour, that
William sent for the artist, and inquired its name. " I
call it Dillegrout" said Tezelin. "A scurvy name for
so good a soup," said the Conqueror; " but let that pass.
We make you Lord of the Manor of Addington !" Thus
modern cooks may boast of a descent from the landed
aristocracy of the Conquest ! Some of their masters cannot
do as much ; and this, perhaps, accounts for the pride of
the one, and the simplicity of the other.

THE MODEM COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE.

If it were necessary that the cook of the ancient world
should be a Sicilian, and that the cuisinier of the ancient
regime should be of Languedoc, (the native place of " blanc
manger") so in these modern times he alone is considered
a true graduate in the noble science de la gueule who is a
Graul by birth, or who has gone through his studies in
the University of French Kitchens. In England, it must
be confessed that great cooks have formed the exception
rather than the rule ; and that our native culinary litera-
ture, however interesting in certain national details, is
chiefly based upon a French foundation. And yet we
may boast of some native professors who were illustrious
in their way. Master John Murrel, for instance, wrote
a cookery book in 1630, and dedicated it to the daughter
of the Lord Mayor. He starts by asserting that cookery
books generally mar rather than make good meats ; and
then shows what good meats were in his estimation, by
teaching how to dress " minced bullock's kidney, a rack of
veal, a farced leg of mutton, an umble pie, and a chewit
of stockfish." He is succulently eloquent on a compound
production, consisting of marrow-bones, a leg of mutton,
fowls and pullets, and a dozen larks, all in one dish.

The Duke of Newcastle, in the last century, had a
female cook of some renown, named " Chloe." General
Guise, at the siege of Carthagena, saw some wild fowl on
the wing, and, amid the din of war, he thought of " Chloe"
and her sauces. She was famous for her stewed mush-
H 2

100 TABLE TRAITS.

rooms, and there is an anecdite connected therewith that
will hear repeating. " Poor Dr. Shaw," writes Horace
Walpole, " heing sent for in great haste to Claremont, (it
seems the Duchess had caught a violent cold by a hair of
her own whisker getting up her nose, and making her
sneeze,) the poor Doctor, I say, having eaten a few
mushrooms before he set out, was taken so ill that he was
forced to stop at Kingston ; and, being carried to the first
apothecary's, prescribed a medicine for himself which
immediately cured him. This catastrophe so alarmed
the Duke of Newcastle, that he immediately ordered all
the mushroom-beds to be destroyed ; and even the toad-
stools in the park did not escape scalping in this general
measure. And a voice of lamentation was heard at
Kamah in Claremont, ' Chloe' weeping for Jier mush-
rooms, and they are not!" But, let us turn to trace
lightly the genealogy of the cooks of modern times.

The descent of the barbarians from the north was
the ruin of cooks as well as of Kings, of kitchens as well
as constitutions. Many of the cooks of the classic period
were slain like the Druid Priests at the fire of their own
altars. A patriotic few fled rather than feed the invader ;
and the servile souls who tremblingly ofiered to prepare a
fricassee of ostrich brains for the Northmen, were dis-
missed with contempt by warrior princes, who lived on
under-done beef, and very much of it !

But as sure as the Saxon blood beats out the Norman,
so does good cookery prevail over barbarous appetites.
The old cooks were a sacrqd race, whose heirs took up
the mission of their sires. This mission was so far trium-
phant, that, at the period of Charlemagne, the imperial
kitchen recognised in its chef the representative of the
Emperor. The oriental pheasant and the peacock, in all
the glories of expanded taU, took the place, or appeared
at the side, of coarser viands. The dignity and the

THE MODERN COOK, AITD HIS SCIENCE. 101

mirth of Charlemagne's tahle were heightened by the
presence of ladies. Brillat de Savarin states, that since
that period the presence of the fair sex has ever been a law
of society. But in this he errs; for the Marquis de
Bo^iille, in his admirable work on the Dukes of Guise,
affirms that the good civilizing custom had fallen into
disuse, but that a permanent improvement was com-
menced in the reign of Francis I., when the Cardinal of
Lorraine induced that Monarch to invite ladies to be
present at all entertainments given at Court. Society
followed the fashion of the Sovereign ; and as it used to be
said, " No feast, no Levite," so now it was felt that
where there was no lady, there was no refined enjoyment.

At whatever period the emancipation of the ladies from
their forced seclusion took place, from that period the
tone of social life was elevated. They went about, like
Eve, " on hospitable thoughts intent." The highest in rank
did not disdain to supervise the kitchen ; they displayed
their talents in the invention of new dishes, as well as in
the preparation of the old; and they occasionally well-
nigh ruined their lords by the magnificence of their tastes,
and their subhme disregard of expense. All the sump-
tuary laws of Kings to restrain this household extrava-
gance were joyously evaded, and banquets became deadly
destructive to men's estates.

The French Kings granted corporate rights to the dif-
ferent trades connected ^ith the kitchen and the table ;
and perhaps the most valued privilege was that conceded
by Charles IX. to the pastry-cooks, who alone were per-
mitted to make bread for the service of the Mass.

Montaigne, in his pleasant way, recounts a conversa-
tion he had with an Italian clief who had served in the
kitchen of Cardinal Caraffa, up to the period of the death
of his gastronomic Eminence. " I made him," says the
great Essayist, " tell me something about his post. He

102 TABLE TEAITS.

gave me a lecture on the science of eating, witli a gravity
and magisterial countenance as if he had been determining
some vexed question in theology. He deciphered to me,
as it were, the distinction that exists between appetites : —
the appetite at fasting; that which people have at the
end of the second or third service ; the means of awaking
and exciting it ; the general * police,' so to speak, of his
sauces; and then particularized their ingredients and
effects. The differences of salads, according to the seasons,
he next discoursed upon. He explained what sorts ought
to be prepared warm, and those which should always be
served cold ; the way of adorning and embellishing them,
in order to render them seductive to the eye. After this
he entered on the order of table-services, — a subject full of
fine and important considerations ; and all this was puffed
up with rich and magnificent terms ; phrases, indeed,
such as are employed by statesmen and diplomatists,
when they are discom'sing on the government of an
empire." We see by this what the "arf de la gueule"
was in the days of Charles IX., whose mother, Catherine
de Medicis, had introduced it into France, as a science
whereby men should enjoy life. The same lady introduced
also poisoning, as a science whereby men might be deprived
of life. Her own career was full of opposing facts like
these, — facts which caused a poetic cook to write the epi-
taph upon her, which says : —

" Here lieth a Queen, who was angel and devil,
Admirer of good, and a doer of evil ;
She supported the State, and the State she destroyed ;
She reconciled friends, and she friendships alloyed ;
She hrought forth three Kings, thrice endanger'd the Crown,
Built palaces up, and threw whole cities down ;
Made many good laws, many bad ones as well.
And merited richly both heaven and hell."

The mention of Cardinal de Caraffa, by Montaigne,

THE MOBEEN COOK, ASD HIS SCIENOE. 103

reminds me that, for a gastronome, the Cardinal was sin-
gularly sanguinary in spirit. I know no one to compare
with him, except Dr. Cahill, who is not averse to good
living, and who has earned so gloomy a notoriety by his
terrible sentiment of the massacre of Protestants being " a
glorious idea." Caraffa was enabled to enjoy both his
propensities, of swallowing good things and slaughtering
heretics. "Having obtained leave from the Pope to
establish the Inquisition at Rome, at a time when the
resources of the State ran low, he turned his private pro-
perby to the use of his zeal, and set up a small Inquisition
at his own expense." Thus he could dine within hearing
of the groans of his victims ; his cook could inform him
that the hares and heretics had both been roasted ; and
he may have been occasionally puzzled to know whether
that smeU of burning came from the patties or the
Protestants.

The Italian cooks were, for a season, fashionable in
France ; but they had a passion for poetry as well as for
pies, and were given to let their sauces bum while
they recited whole pages of " Orlando Furioso." They
were critics as well as cooks, and the kitchens resotmded
with their denunciations of all who objected to, the merits
of the divine Ariosto. But even the Papal ennobling
of a cook could not compensate for an indifferent dinner ;
and though Leo X., in a fit of modest delight at a sauce
made by his cook during Lent, named him from that
circumstance " Jack o' Lent," or " Jean de Careme," 'the
French would not allow that such au event authorized
the artiste to be dreaming over epics, when he should be
wide awake to the working of his proper mystery. But
the mystery itself was much obstructed by the political
events of the times. There were the bloody wars of the
Guises, the troubles of the League, the despotic reign of
Eichelieu, the cacochymical temperament (as the editor of

104 TABLE TBAITS.

the "Almanack des Crourmands" would call it) of Louis
XIII., and the ridiqulous war of the Fronde. The glory of
the French kitchen rose with that of the Grand Monarque,
and Vatel and Louis XIV. were contemporaries. Vatel
slew himself to save his honour ! The King had come to
dine with Conde ; hut the cod had not arrived in time to
he dressed for the King, and thereupon the heroic artist
fell upon his sword, Hke an ancient Eoman, and is immor-
tahzed for ever by his glorious folly !

But there was nothing really heroic in the death of
Vatel, whose sword was pointed at his breast by wounded
vanity. Far more heroic was the death of the cook of
the Austrian Consul, in the late cruel massacre, by the
cowardly Russian fleet, at Sinope. The Consul's cook
was a young woman of thirty years of age. The Musco-
vite murderers were at the very height of their bloody
enjoyment, and sending shots into the town, when the
cook attempted to cross a garden, to procure some herbs ;
for Consuls must dine, though half the world be dying.
She had performed her mission, and was returning, when
a thirty-six pounder shot cut her completely in two.
Eather than give up the parsley for her master's soup,
she thus encountered death. What was Vatel and his
bodkin, to this more modern cook and the thirty-sbc
pounder, loaded by the Czar for her destruction ?

The cooks "looked up" in the nights and suppers of
the Eegency, and the days and dinners of Louis XV. It
would be difficult to say whether under the Regent, or
under the King, the culinary art and its professors most
flourished. I am inclined, however, to think, that, during
the tranquil and voluptuous period of the reign of Louis
XV., the cooks of France rose to that importance from
which they have never descended. They became a recog-
nised and esteemed class in society, whose spoiled children
they were j and, in return, it was very like spoiled children

THE MODEEK COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE. 105

that they behaved. But how could it be otherwise, when
the noble, the brave, and the fair girded aprons to their
loins, and stood over stew-pans, with the air of alchymists
over alembics ? It is to the nobihty and other distia-
guished persons in high life, yet not noble, in France, that
gastronomy owes many a dish, whose very name betrays
to ecstasy. And here are a few of these droU benefactors
of mankind.

The Marquis de Bechamel immortalized his name, in
the reign of Louis XIV., by his invention of cream-sauce,
for turbot and cod. Madame de Maintenon imagined the
" cutlets in curl-papers " which go by her name, and which
her ingenuity created in order to guard the sacred sto-
mach of the Grand Monarque from the grease which he
could not digest. The " Chartreuse a la Mauconseil " is the
work, and the most innocent one, of the free and easy
Marchioness of that name. A woman more free and easy
. stni, the Duchess of YiUeroy, (Marechale de Luxem-
bourg,) produced, in her hours of reflection, the dish known
as the poulets a la Villeroy. They were eaten with bread
a la Segent, of which the author was the rott/Duke of Or-
leans. His too " weU-beloved " daughter, the Duchess of
Berry, had a gastronomic turn of mind, like her illus-
trious father. She was an epicurean lady, who tasted of
all the pleasures of life without moderation, whose device
was, " Short and sweet," and who was contented to die
young, seeing that she had exhausted all enjoyment, and
had achieved a renown, that should embalm her name for
ever, as the inventor of the Jilets de lapereaw. The ffiffot
a la Mailly was the result of much study, on the part
of the first mistress of Louis XV., to rid herself of a
sister who was a rival. Madame de Pompadour, another
of the same King's "ladies," testified her gratitude for
the present which the Monarch made her of the Chateau
de BeUevue, by the production of fke filets de volaille a la

106 TABLE TEAITS.

jBellevue. The Queen of Louis was more devout, but not
less epicurean, than his mistresses ; and the petites houcMes
a la Seine, if they were not of her creating, were named in
honour of Maria Leczinzka. Louis himself had a con-
tempt for female cooks ; but Madame Du Barry had one
so well-trained, that with a charming dinner of coulis de
faisans, croustades de lafoie de lottes, salmis de Moassine,
pain de volatile a la supreme, poularde au cresson, e'cre-
visses au vin de Sauterne, hisquets de pSches au Noyau, and
crtme de cerneaux, the King was so overcome with
ecstasy, that, after recovering from the temporary disgust
he experienced at hearing that it was the handywork of
a woman, he consented to ennoble her by conferring upon
her the cordon lieu, — which phrase, from that time, has
been accepted as signifying a skilled female cook.

With respect to other dishes and their authors, the
vol au vent a la Nesle owns a Marquis for its father ; and
the poularde a la Montmorency is the offspring of a Duke.
The Bayonnoise, or the Mdboniioise rather, recalls one of
the victories of the Duke de ' Eichelieu ; and veau a la
Montgolfier, weU inflated, was the tribute of a culinary
artist to the hero who first rode the air at the tail of a
balloon. The sorbet a la Donizetti was the master-
piece of the Italian confectioner of the late Duke of
Beaufort. He had been to the Opera; and one of the
composer's charming airs having given him an idea, he
brooded over it, tiU, an hour or so before dawn, it was
hatched into reahty, when he rushed to the Duke's bed-
chamber, and, "drawing Priam's bed-curtains in the
night," announced to his startled Grace the acliievement
of a new sorhet.

The tendrons d'agneaux au soleil, and the filets de
poulets a la Pompadour, were two of the dishes invented
by the famous lady of that name. The carbonnade a la
Soubise, and the carre de veau a la Guemenee, date —

THE MODEEK COOK, AlTD HIS SCIENCE. 107

the first from the reign of Louis XV., the last from
that of Louis XVI., — periods when the people were
famishing. The Pompadour was a great patron of the
arts, and especially of the culinary art ; and the cuisine
des petits a^^artements, during her reign, was at the very
height of its savoury reputation. The Prince of Souhise
was a poor General, but a rich glutton ; and his son-in-
law, the Prince de Guemenee, was famous for his inven-
tion of various ragouts, his inordinate extravagance, and
his bankruptcy, with liabilities against him amounting to
twenty-eight millions of francs. Madame la Marechale de
Mirepoix. was the authoress of cailles a la Mirepoix ; and
her descendants live on the reputation acquired thereby
by their epicurean ancestress. The Bourbons vied with
the aristocracy in taxing their genius, and cudgelling
their brains, in order to produce new dishes. Thus, the
potage a la Xavier was the production of Louis XVIII., in
the days of his early manhood ; while the sovpe a la Conde
was a rival dish invented by his princely cousin, — a cousin,
by the way, who, when a refugee in England, used to pass
his evenings at Astley's, with his pockets full of apples,
which he gallantly presented to ladies as highly, but not
as naturally, coloured as the fruit. Perhaps the reputa-
tion of the Marechal de Eichelieu rests more on his
ioudins a la carpe, than on his battles and hillets-doux.
Pinally, a mysterious obscmity conceals from us the
name of the inventor of the petites iouchees de file gras.
He is the Junius of gastronomic literature ; but if he be
guessed at in vain, he is blessed abundantly, as one who
has concentrated paradise, (an Epicurean's paradise,) and
given an antepast thereof, in a single mouthful.

The Prince de Soubise was famous in the reign of Louis
XV. for giving great dinners, and paying nobody but his
cooks, and the young ladies of the opera. He once varied
his extravagance by a splendid fete, which was to ter-

108 TABLE TEAITS.

minate by a supper. His chef waited on him with the
bill of fare for the banquet, and the first article which
attracted his attention was " fifty hams." " Half a hun-
dred hams 1" said the Prince, " that 's a coarse idea, Ber-
tramd. Yon have not got to feed my regiment of cavalry."
" Truly, Prince ! and only one ham will appear on the
table ; I want the remaining forty-nine for adjuncts, sea-
sonings, flavourings, and a dozen other purposes." " Ber-
trand," replied the Prince, " you are robbing me, and I
cannot allow this article to pass." " Monseigneur !" ex-
claimed the offended artiste, " you doubt my morals, and
libel my merit. You do not know what a treasure you
possess in me ; you have only to order it, and those fifty
hams which so terribly offend you, why, I will put them
all into a phial not bigger than my thumb !" The Prince
smiled, and Bertrand triumphed.

The cooks of. the young King Louis XVI. remarked,
with mingled terror and disgust, that his appetite was
rather voracious than delicate. He cared little what he
ate, provided there was enough of it ; and he looked to
nutrition rather than niceness. A succulent joint with
him had more merit than the most singular of dishes, the
invention of which had perhaps caused three nights of
wakefulness to its author. But the aristocracy, the law,
and finance, maintained tables which ought to have been
the pride of Versailles. Late dinners, or gorgeous sup-
pers, were indulged in to such a degree by the moneyed
classes, that it was familiarly said, that of an evening the
chimneys of the Faubourg Saint Honore made fragrant
vyith their incense the entire capital. It was reckoned
that, at this period, twenty thousand men had no other
profession than that of " diner out," which they carried
on, like the parasites of old, by retailing anecdotes ■ and
news in return for the repast. It was a time when " Mon-
seigneur" thought nothing of dispatching his cook to

THE MODEEN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE. 109

London to procure a turtle ; whicli, after all, was less extra-
vagant than the process of Cambaceres, who had his Peri-
gord pies sent to him through the post, " On His Majesty's
Service." The Languedocien cooks in France were paid
the quadruple of the salary of the family tutor, good
eating being so much more essential to life than mere
instruction; and, besides, could the family tutor have
accomplished any thing that could equal the achievement
of the family cook who could bring to table entire a
" sanffUer a la crapaudine ?" The cooks of the age of
Louis XVI. invented the " hotiillie" and the " consomme'"
because mastication was considered by them a vulgar
process ; and the royal cooks, during Passion Week, mani-
pulated the vegetables placed before the King into the
forms of ocean-dwelling fish, and gave to the semblance
the taste of the reality for which it passed to the eye.

The glory of gastronomy was again rismg when it was
suddenly quenched by the revolutionary torrent, and the
nation was put on a three years' meagre dietary by the
Jacobins and the Directory. But the Revolution, which
affected to hate cooks as aristocratic appendages that
ought to be suppressed, sometimes made, where it hoped
to mar. The case of Ude is one in point.

Monsieur TJde, like Prince Eugene, was originally
intended for the Church. At the breaking out of the
French Kevolution, he was residing, for instruction, with
an Abbe, and master and pupil had to fly before the
popular indignation, which, for a time, assailed the Church,
and aU therewith connected. Ude's life was in peril in
the public streets, and he just saved it, by rushing into
the shop of a pastry-cook, where he found a permanent
asylum. The " house of TJde," like other great houses,
nearly perished in the great political shipwreck of the day,
and this particular scion thereof took to the study of prac-
tical gastronomy, and became chief supreme in various

110 TABIE TEAITS.

great kitchens, from that of royalty down to that of
Crockford.

When the sluices of the French Eevolution were
opened, how diverse were the fortunes of those who
fled from before it ! It was the same with the gentlemen
who had followed the fortunes of Napoleon. They were
scattered, like the Generals of Alexander, without being
able, like them, to retire upon independent sovereignties,
and rear dynasties of baiibaric splendour. Some went to
Greece to crush despotism, some went to Lahore to aid it.
A few, like Latour ,d'Auvergne, took to the Church ; but,
saving that portly person himself, none had the good luck
to reach the arohiepiscopate. Those who failed to procure
employment in foreign armies, and yet could not lay aside
their propensity for killing, went to the East, and pre-
scribed as Physicians. Such of the rest as were abso-
lutely fit for nothing, and willing to do it, inundated
England, and undertook the hght and irresponsible ofl3.ce
of Private Tutors !

But it was the earlier Eevolution that afibrded examples
of the greatest contrasts. Many young men, intended
for the Church, changed their profession, and became
popular, useful, and rich, in the households of European
royalty, as civihzers of the kitchen, who raised cookery
from its barbarous condition to a matter of science and
taste. Perhaps the most curious of the waifs and strays
of the Eevolution flung upon our shores, was the ChevaHer
D'Aubigne, who contrived to live, as so many French
gentlemen of that time did, in bitter poverty, without a
sacrifice of dignity. He had one day been invited by an
English friend to dine with the latter at a tavern. In
the course of the repast, he took upon himself to mix the
salad ; and the way in which he did this, attracted the
notice of all the other guests in the room. Previous to
the period of which I am speaking, lettuces were com-

THE MODEEN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE. Ill

monly eaten, by tavern frequenters at least, au naturel,
Tvith no more dressing than Nebuchadnezzar had to his
grass when he dieted daily among the beasts. Conse-
quently, when D'Aubigne handled the preparation forwhich
he had asked, like a chymist concocting elixir in his labo-
ratory, the guests were lost in admiration ; for the refresh-
ing aroma of a Mayonnaise was warrant to their senses,
that the French Knight had discovered for them a new
pleasure. One of them approached the foreign magician,
and said, " Sir, it is universally known that your nation
excels all others in the making a salad. Would it be too
great a Hberty to ask you to do us the faroiir to mix one
for the party at my table ?" The courteous Frenchman
smiled, was flattered, performed the office asked of him,
and put four gentlemen in a state of uncontrollable ecstasy.
He had talked cheerfully, as he mixed gracefully and
scientifically, and, in the few minutes required by him to
complete his work of enchantment, he contrived to ex-
plain his position as emigrant, and his dependence on the
pecimiary aid -afforded by the English Government. The
guests did not let the poor Chevalier depart without
slipping into his hand a golden fee, which he received
with as little embarrassment, and as much dignity, as
though he had been the Physician De Portal taking an
'honorarium from the hands of the Cardinal de Eohan.

He had communicated his address, and he, perhaps, was
not very much surprised when, a few days after, he received
a letter in which he was poUtely requested to repair to a
house in Grosvenor Square, for the purpose of mixing a
salad for a dinner-party there to be given. D'Aubigne
obeyed the summons ; and, after performing his mission,
returned home richer by a five-pound note than when
he went out.

Henceforth he became the recognised " fashionable
salad-maker;" and ladies " died" for his salads, as they

112 TABLE TBAITS.

do now for Constantine's simulative bouquets. The pre-
parer was soon enabled to proceed to his responsible duties
in a carriage; and a servant attended him, carrying a
mahogany case, containing the necessary ingredients for
concocting various salads, according to the respective tastes
of his employers. At a later period, he sold, by hundreds,
similar mahogany cases, which he had caused to be made,
and which were furnished with all matters necessary for
the making an irreproachable salad, and with directions
how to administer them. The Chevalier, too, was, like
old Carre, — whose will was so cleverly made by the very
disinterested friends who had never before spoken to him,
— a prudent and a saving man ; and by the period which
re-opened France to the emigres, he had realized some
eighty thousand francs, upon which he enjoyed a dignified
retirement in a provincial town. He invested sixty thou-
sand francs in the Funds ; with the other twenty thousand
he purchased a little estate in the Limousin, and, if he
lacked a " legend" to his device, I would have helped
him to one in " Sal adfert."

A Knight over a salad-bowl is not a chivalrous picture ;
but the stern necessity of the case gave it dignity, and
the resulting profits quieted the scruples of the gentle-
man. When Booth pounced upon Captain Bath, sitting
in a dirty flannel gown, and warming his sister's posset
at the fire, the noble and gaunt Captain was taken some-
thing aback, and said, in a little confusion, " I did not
expect. Sir, to be seen by you in this situation." Booth
told him " he thought it impossible he could appear in a
situation more becoming his character." The compli-
ment was equivocal ; but the Captain said, " You do not ?
By Gr — I am very much obliged to you for that opinion ;
but I believe. Sir, however my weakness may prevail on
me to descend from it, no man can be more conscious of
his own dignity than myself." The apology of good

THE MODEEir COOK, AKD HIS SOIEITOE. 113

Captain Bath in Fielding's " Amelia," would have served
the Chevalier who made salads, had he needed one.

If a salad made the fortune of a Chevalier, it on one
occasion made that of a female cook, with whose dexterity
in this respect a learned English Judge was so enchanted,
that he raised the lucky maiden to the quality of wife. If
we discuss the traits of life at tahle, we have nothing to
do with the secrets of household ; but an incident, illus-
trative of the consequences of this match, may be men-
tioned. The Judge ever after was famous for protracting
the sittings in court beyond all precedent and patience ;
and when weary Barristers were aghast at hearing a new
cause called on, when the night was half spent, and fairly
remonstrated against the judicial cruelty, the learned
husband of his cook would remark with a sigh, " Gentle-
men, we must be somewhere ; we cannot be better any
where than where we now are," — the half of which asser-
tion was stoutly denied by his hearers.

Our aristocracy are not quite so famous for their inven-
tion of dishes as that of France ; but their love for good
dinners, and their knowledge of what they ought to be,
are not inferior to the affection and science of our neigh-
bours. When Lord Marcus Hill officiated as whipper-in
to the Whig Government, it was part of his office to
order the fish dinner at which Ministers regale themselves
when sessional cares no longer molest them. The fish
dinners of Lord Marcus are remembered with satisfaction
smd gratitude ; for they were first-rate in their way. The
rej)utation of the Carlton cuisine and cellar is said to be
chiefly owing to Sir Alexander Grant, of whom a gastro-
nomic critic says, "No living Amphitryon has given
better dinners in his tune ; and few can boast of having
entertained more distinguished guests." His name, as a
patron, leminds me of that of Careme, as a practitioner.

PEN AND INK SKETCH OE CAREME.

It would be as easy to compile a Dictionary of Coots,
as of Musicians or Painters; but it would not be so
amusing or so edifying, except perhaps to those who
tbink more of their stomach than of their mind. But it
would then be attractive and useful to the majority of
readers ; for the sages themselves are not unmindful of
their stomachs, and, according to a sage, they would be
unworthy of the name if they neglected that vital matter.
Johnson, you know, lived in an age when things were
called by their real names. " J'appelle wn chat rni chat"
was the device of the plain-spoken, when not only men,
but ladies, bold as the Thalestris of Young's pungent
satire, loudly dared to name what nature dared to give.
Dr. Johnson, then, says, " Some people have a foolish way
of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they
eat. For my part, I mind my helly very studiously ; for
I look upon it that he who does not mind his lelly, will
hardly mind any thing else !"

To the world, then, even a Biographical Dictionary of
Cooks might be captivating ; but as my present mission
is not to write an Encyclopsedia, but rather deferentially
to offer my Kttle sketches to gentle, and not too critical,
readers, with leisure half-hours at their command, so do I
offer them a sketch of Careme, as the knowledge of the
individual may stand for that of the class.

He was illustrious by descent ; for one of his ancestors

FEN AND INK SKETCH OF CAEEME. 115

had served in the household of a Pope, who himself made
more sauces than saints, Leo X. But Careme was one
of so poor and so numerous a family, that when he came
into the world, he was no more welcome than OUver
Goldsmith was : the respective parents of the httle-cared-
for habes did not know what future great men lay in
naked helplessness before them. One wrote immortal
poetry, and starved : the other made deUcious pastry, and
rode ia a chariot ! We know how much Oliver received
for his " Vicar ;" while Anthony Careme used to receive
twice as much for merely writing out a recipe to make a
"pate." Nay, Careme's untouched patties, when they
left royal tables, were bought up at a cost whict would
have supported Goldsmith for a month ; and a cold
sugared entremet, at the making of which Careme had
presided, readily fetched a higher price than the pubHc
now pay for the " Complete Works " of the poet of Green-
Arbour-court !

Careme studied imder various great masters, but he
perfected his studies imder Boucher, chef des services of
the Prince Talleyrand. The glory of Careme was co-eval
with that of Napoleon : those two individuals were great
men at the same period ; but the glory of one wUl, per-
haps, be a Httle more enduring than that of the other. I
will not say whose glory wiU thus last the longer ; for as
was remarked courteously by the Oxford candidate for
honours, who was more courteous than " crammed," and
who was asked which were the minor Prophets, " I am
not willing to draw invidious distinctions ! "

In the days of the Empire, — the era of the greatness, of
the achievements, and of the reflections of Careme, — the
possession of him was as eagerly contested by the rich as
that of a nymph by the satyrs. He was alternately the
glory of Talleyrand, the boast of Lavalette, and the pride
of the Saxon Ambassador. In their houses, too, his hand
I 2

116 TABLE TEAIT3.

was as often on his pen as on the handle of his casserole ;
and inspiration never visited his brain without the call
being duly registered in his note-book, with reflections
thereon highly philosophical and gastronomic.

But Careme was capricious. It was not that he was
unfaithful, but he was volage ; and he passed from kitchen
to kitchen, as the bee wings from flower to flower. The
Emperor Alexander dined with Talleyrand, and forthwith
he seduced Careme : the seduction-money was only £100
sterling per month, and the culinary expenses. Careme
did not yield without much coyness. He urged his love
for study, his desire to refine the race of which he made
himself , the model, his love for his country j and he even
accompanied, for a brief moment, " Lord Stewart" to
Vienna ; but it was more in the way of policy than pastiy :
for Count Orloff was sent after him on a mission, and
Careme, after flying, with the full intention of being fol-
lowed, to London and Paris, yielded to the golden solici-
tation, and did the Emperor Alexander the honour of
becoming the head of the imperial kitchen in whatever
palace His Majesty presided. But the delicate suscepti-
bility of Careme was wounded by discovering that his
book of expenses was subjected to supervision. He flung
up his appointment in disgust, and hastened across Europe
to England. The jealous winds wished to detain him for
France, and they blew him back on the coast between
Calais and Boulogne, exactly as they did another gentle-
man, who may not be so widely known as Careme, but
who has been heard of in England under the name of
William Wordsworth. CaJeme accepted the omen, repaired
to Paris, entered the service of the Princess Bagration, and
served the table of that capricious lady, en maitre d'hotel.
As the guests uttered ecstatic praises of the feire, the
Princess would smile upon ihim as he stood before her,
and exclaim, " He is the pearl of cooks I" Is it a matter

PEN AKD INK SKETCH OF CAEEME. 117

of surprise that he was vam? Fancy being called a
"pearl" by a Princess ! On reading it we think of the
days when Lady Mary Wortley Montague put nasty
footmen into eclogues, and deified the dirty passions of
Mrs. Mahony's lacquey.

The Princess, however, ate herself into a permanent
indigestion, and Careme transferred his services to the
English Ambassador at the Court of Vienna. There,
every morning, seated in his magnificent kitchen, Careme
received the visit of " Milor Stewart," who seldom lefb
him without presents and encouragements. Indeed, these
rained upon the immortal artist. The Emperor Alex-
ander had consented to have Careme's projects uf culinary
architecture dedicated to him, and, with notice of consent,
sent him a diamond ring. When Prince Walkouski
placed it on his finger, the cook forgot his dignity, and
burst into tears. So did all the other cooks in the
Austrian capital, — out of sheer jealousy.

Careme, two years before George IV. was King, had
been for a short period a member of the Eegent's house-
hold. He left Vienna to be present at the Coronation.;
but he arrived too late ; and he does not scruple to say,
very imgenerously, that the banquet was spoiled for want
of his presence, nor to insinuate that the colleagues with
whom he would have been associated were imworthy of
such association, — an insinuation at once base and base-
less. After being the object of a species of semi-worship,
and yielding to every new ofier, yet affecting to despise
them aU, Careme ultimately tabernacled with Baron
Eothschild in Paris ; and the super-human excellency of
his dinners, is it not written in the "Book without a
Name " of Lady Morgan ? And was not his residence
there the object of envy, and cause of much melan-
choly, and opportunity for much eulogy, on the part of
George IV.? Well, Anthony Careme would have us

118 TABLE TEAITS.

believe as matih with respect to himself and the King ;
but we do not believe a word of it ; for the royal table
was never better cared for by the royal officers, whose
duty lay in such care, than at this very period. George
IV. is said to have tempted him by offering triple sala-
ries ; but all in vain ; for London was too triste an abiding
place for a man whose whole soul, out of kitchen hours,
was given to study. And so Careme remained with his
Jewish patron until infirmity overtook his noble nature,
and he retired to dictate his immortal works (like Mil-
ton, very !) to his accomplished daughter. IJes hecmx
Testes of Careme were eagerly sought after ; but he would
not heed what was no longer a temptation ; for he was
realizing twenty thousand francs a year from the book-
sellers, besides th6 interest of the money he had saved.
Think of it, shade of MUtou! Eight hundred pounds
sterling ,{/earZy, for writing on kitchen-stuff! Who would
compose epics after that ? But Careme's books were
epics after their sort, and they are highly creditable to
the scribe who wrote them from his notes. Finally, even
Antony Careme died, like cooks of less degree; but he
had been the imperial despot of European kitchens, had
been "beringed" by Monarchs, and been smiled on by
Princesses ; he had received Lords in his kitchen, and had
encountered ladies who gave him a great deal for a very
Httle knowledge in return ; and finally, as Pulke GrevUle
had inscribed on his tomb that he had been the friend of
Sir Philip' Sidney, so the crowning joy of Careme's life
might have been chiselled on his monument, indicating
that he had been the friend of one whom he would
have accounted a greater man than the knightly hero in
question, — namely, il Maestro Mossini ! Careme's cup was
thereat full ; and he died, perfectly convinced that para-
dise itself would be glad at his coming.
The celebrated Damvers was chef to the as celebrated

PEN AND INK SKETCH OF CAEEME. 119

financier Grimaud de la Eeyniere, in the last century.
Grimaud died a martyr to his epicurean tastes. He was
dining on a.pdte de foies gras, when he allowed his appe-
tite to overpower his digestion, and he died of the excess.
Barthe, the author of " Les Fausses Infidelites," also fell
on the field of the dining-room. He was extremely short-
sighted, and ate of every thing on the table. He did not
consult his appetite, but his servant, asking him, " Have
I eaten of that ?" "Have I had any of this ?" It was
after partaking too freely, both of "this" and "that,"
that poor M. Barthe let his temper get the better of him
in an argument, and a stroke of apoplexy sent him under
the table. His cook deplored in him the loss of a man
of taste.

The cook of the Count de Tesse, Master of the Horse
to Marie Antoinette, was famous for dressing artichokes.
The great MoriUian surpassed him, however ; but this
feat did not save the artist from ending his days in
poverty. The elder Eobert was, perhaps, equal to either
of them, in this or in any other respect connected with
his art. The great Careme, ignorant of every thing
else, was at least an accomplished cook. There is, as I
have said, a tradition that his petits pate's, when they
left the Regent's table, were sold, like the second-hand
pies from the royal table at Versailles, for fabulous prices.
Aa I have before intimated, it was for Leo X. that Careme
the First invented those succulent, but orthodox, dishes,
which pleased the pontifical palate at a season when
gratification by gravy would have been scandalous!
It was in the Baron Eothschild's household that Careme
the Second invented his famous sauce piquante, the result
of his studies under Eichaut, Asne, and the elder Eobert.
It was in and for France that Careme published the
learned and curious work of which he is the reputed
author, and which he may have dictated, but which he

120 TABLB TBAITa.

could not have written. It is marked by pMosophical
inquiry, instruction, and pleasant trifling ; and neither
book nor reputed author has been excelled by any artist,
or any. sample of kitchen literature, that has appeared
since that period.

Before the age of Careme, the popular kitchen in
Prance was not very superior to our own ; and the patrons
of twvernes and traitewrs were as coarsely fed as our
frequenters of ordinaries. But as royalty fell, the restaii-
rateurs rose ; and when, in 1786, the cooks of Louis XVI.
began to augur badly of their prospects, three jfrovii
brothers, Barthelemy, Mannielles, and Simon, opened
their famous restawremt, " Les Trois Freres Frovengaux,"
in the Palais Eoyal, and constituted themselves the cooks
of another King, — ^the sovereign people. The new esta-
blishment created an era in the history of cookery, and
men of aU shades of politics, and Generals of aU grades
of reputation, resorted to the tables of the Brothers.
General Bonaparte and Barras were to be seen there
daily, before they took their cheap pleasure at the theatre
of Mile. Montansier. During the wars of the Empire
it was the chosen stage for the farewell banquets of bre-
thren in arms, and at this period the receipts amounted
to not less than £500 sterling daily. The triumvirate
of proprietors endured longer than any such union in the
political world; and it was not till the reign of Louis
PHlippe that the estabHshment of " Les Trois M-eres'"
descended, under a new proprietary, into a more unpre-
tending position than that which it had proudly sus-
tained during half a century. The casseroles of the
savoury Brothers had remained unshaken, while Kings
and constitutions had fallen around them.

The fortune of the Provincial Brothers tempted another
country cook from his obscurity ; and some fovir years
after. the former had set up their tables in the Palais

PEN AND INK SKETCH OF CAEEME. 121

Eoyal, the immortal V&y thrust his feet into wooden
clogs, and trudged from a village on the Meuse up to the
capital, to give it a taste of his quality. He enchanted
Marshal Duroc with some of his plats, and henceforth
his fortune was secure. He married a heautiful woman,
whose pen kept his hooks, whose face attracted customers,
and whose heart was devoted to her hushand. A quarter
of a century sufficed to enahle Very to die immensely
rich, after working excessively hard, and to he magni-
ficently entomhed in the Cimetiere Montmwrtre, under a
marble column, which bore the engraved assurance that
"his whole life was devoted to the useful arts."

BeauviUiers appeared in Paris about the same time as
"the Three Brothers ;" he made and unmade his fortune
three or four times, and died poor, three years after Very
died so rich. BeauviUiers was the author of " L'Art du
Chiisinier" a hook almost as interesting as "The Art of
Dining ;" and one cannot name either without standing
mentally ckapeau las ! before the author.

BeauviUiers was famous for his splendid wines and heavy
bUl. The Veau qui tette was renowned for its sheep-
trotters. The reputation of others was built upon kid-
neys ; that of Very, on his entrees truffi^es. The " Three
Provincial Brothers" enjoyed a wide esteem for the way in
which they dressed cod with garlic. Baleine kept a
house that was crowded by the admirers of fish ; while
that of Robert was distinguished for the graceful atten-
tion with which previoiisly ordered dinners were served ;
and that of Henneveu for the splendid botidoirs in which
shy couples, too modest to encotmter the pubHo gaze,
could dine in private, and cease to find their modesty
oppressive. BeauviUiers', as I have intimated, was a
costly house ; but it was not therefore the most excel-
lent in Paris. The exceUence of a dinner is not to be
determined by its price. Four years ago an illustrious

122 TABLE TEAITS.

party dined at Philippe's, in the Eue Montorgueil, at a
far lower cost, and after a far more exquisite fashion,
than if they had joined the Epicureans of the Clarendon,
at £5 per head. The party consisted of Lords Brougham
and Dufferin, the Honourahle W. Stuart, two other
"Britishers," and Count D'Orsay and M. Alexandre
Dumas. The dinner on this occasion was a reeherchee
affair. It had been as anxiously meditated upon as an
epic poem; and it was a far pleasanter thing. "The
most successful dishes," says the author of "The Art of
Dining," " were the hisques, the fritures a I'ltalienne,
and the gigot a la Sretwnne. Out of compliment to the
world-wide fame of Lord Brougham and Alexandre
Dumas, M. Philippe produced some Clos de Vougeot,
which, (like his namesake in ' High Life Below Stairs,')
he vowed, should never go down the throat of a man
whom he did not esteem and admire ; and it was voted
first-rate by acclamation."

The French repasts are not always good, even when
they are rather costly. In 1807, a party of twenty-two
sat down to a repast at the yotmger " Eobert's," in Paris.
The Amphitryon of the feast was M. Daolouis ; and the
bin, exclusive of wine, amounted to thirty louis. There
were but three or four great dishes, and two or three
sauces. The discontent of the guests was general, and
the giver of the feast allowed that the dinner was not
near so good as that of the " Soeiete des Mercredis," at
Le Qacque's, which cost only seven francs per head, ordi-
nary wine, liqueurs, and coffee included. " Mais, a diner,
Messieurs, a diner!"

DINNER TRAITS.

"Foe these and all His mercies" once began

Dr. Johnson, whose good custom it was always to thank
Heaven for the good things set before him ; but he almost
as invariably found fault with the food given. And of
this see-saw process Mrs. Johnson grew tired ; and on the
occasion alluded to, she stopped her husband by remarking
that it was a farce to pretend to be grateful for dishes
which, in two minutes, he would pronounce to be as
worthless as the worst of Jeremiah's figs ! And so there
was no blessing. Mrs. Johnson might have supplied the
one employed by merry old Lady Hobart at a dinner
where she looked inquiringly, but vainly, for a grace-
sayer. "Well," remarked the good ancient dame, "I
think I must say as one did in the like case, ' God be
thanked! — nobody wUl say grace!'" It is seldom that
"grace" is properly said or sung. The last is a terribly
melodious mockery at public dinners ; but then every
man should silently and fervently make thanksgiving in
his own heart. He is an ungracious knave who sits
down to a meal without at least a sUent acknowledgment
of gratitude to Him, without whom there could have
been no spreading of the banquet. Such«a defaulter
deserves to be the bound slave of dyspepsia, until he
learn better manners. " Come, gentlemen," Beau Nash
used to say, " eat, and welcome !" It was all his grace ;

124 TABLE TEAITS.

and had lie said, " Come, gentlemen, be thaniM and eat,"
it would have been more like the Christian gentleman,
and less like the "bean."

It was a good old rule that prescribed as a law of num-
bers at the dinner table, that the company should not be
more than the Muses nor less than the Graces. There
was not always unlimited freedom of action in the matter ;
for, by the Lex Faunia, a man was forbidden to invite
more than three strangers (not of his family) to dinner,
except on market days, (three times a month,) when he
might invite five. The host was restricted to spending
only two and a half drachmas; but he might consume
annually one hundred and twenty Eoman pounds of meat
for each person in his house, and eat at discretion of all
plants and herbs that grew wild; and, indeed, little
restriction was put upon vegetables at all. One conse-
quence -was, that this law against luxury begot a great
deal of it, and ruined men's stomachs in consequence.
When the French Mayor ordered all good citizens in his
dark district to carry lanterns at night, he forgot to say a
word about candles, and the wits walked about with the
lanterns unfurnished. The official rectified the mistake by
ordering the candles ; but as he omitted to say that these
were to be lighted, the public did not profit by the decree.
So the Lea Faunia, when it allowed mirestrained liberty
in thistles, forgot to limit sauces ; and vegetables generally
were eaten with such luscious adds to which the name of
" sauce " was given, that even the grave Cicero yielded to
the temptation, spoiled his digestion, and got a liver
complaint ! After all, it is said that only three Romans
could be found who rigorously observed the Mmnia Law,
according to their oaths. These were men more easily
satisfied than Apiqius, who cried like a child, when, of aU
his vast fortune, he had only about £250,000 sterling
that he could devote to gluttony ; or than Lucullus, who

BINITEE THAITS. 125

never supped in the "Apollo" without its costing him
at least ten thousand pounds.

Notwithstanding this, the Faimia Law was an ahsurd
impertinence. It was like the folly of Antigonus, who
one day, seeing the poet Antagoras in the camp, cooking
a dish of congers for his dinner, asked, " O Antagoras, dost
thou think that Homer sang the deeds of heroes while he
boiled fish?" "And you, O King," returned the poet,
" thinkest thou that Agamemnon gained renown for his ex-
ploits, by trying to find out who had boUed fish for dinner
in his camp ?" The moral is, that it is best to leave men
at liberty to eat as they like. Society is strong enough
to make laws on these matters for itself; and no one now
could commit the crime of the greedy Demylos, who, to
secure a superb dish of fish for himself, himvaev eh taniiv,
"spat in it;" and if my readers refer to the chapter
illustrating "Their Majesties at Meat," they will find
that so dirty a trick was not the reserved privilege of
Heathenism.

The Pythagoreans were clean eaters, and dined daily on
bread and honey. On the smeU of the latter Democritus
did not indeed dine, but died. He had determined to
commit suicide, and had cut down his allowance to such
small rations, that his death was expected daily. But the
fun and the festival of Ceres was at hand ; and the ladies
of his house begged him to be good enough not to spoil
the frolic by dying at such a mirthful moment. He con-
sented, asked for a pot of honey, and kept himself aHve
by smelling at it, till the festival was over, when his
family hoped that he would die whenever he found it con-
venient. He took one sniff more at the pot, and in the
efert his breath passed away for ever. There was
nothing reprehensible in the conduct of those ladies.
They did not outrage the spirit of their times. I think
worse of Madam du Deffand, who went out to dine on tho

1.26 TABLE TEAITS.

day her old lover died, remarking, as she entered the
room, how lucky it was that he had expired before six
o'clock, as otherwise she would have been too late for
the gay party expecting her. The brilliant society who
played cards by the side of the bed of the dying Mile, de
I'Espinasse, and coimted their tricks while they com-
mented upon her "rattles," may be pronounced as being
twice as Pagan as the ladies of the household of Demo-
critus.

A small portion of soup is a good preparative to excite
the digestive powers generally for what is to foUow.
Oysters form a far less commonly safe introduction to the
more solid repast, their chiU, which even Chabhs cannot
always rectify, paralysing rather than arousing the sto-
mach. The French louilli after soup is a dangerous
vulgarity ; for it is simply, as a distinguished professor
has styled it, " meat, all but its nourishing juice."

" Poultry," says M. BriUat, " is to the sick man who has
been floating over an uncertain and uneasy sea, like the
first odour or sight of land to the storm-beaten mariner."
But a skilful cook can render almost any dish attractive
to any and every quality of appetite. In this respect,
the French and Chinese cooks are reaUy professional bre-
thren ; much more so than a general practitioner and a
veterinary surgeon!

The Chinese are exceedingly skilful cooks, and exhibit
taste and judgment in the selection of their food. With
a few beans, and the meal of rice and com, they wiU
make a palatable and nutritious dish. They eat horse-
flesh, rats, mice, and young dogs. Why not ? All these
are far cleaner feeders than pigs and lobsters. A tho-
rough-bred horse is so nice in his appetite, that he will
refuse the corn which has been breathed upon by another
horse. The Tonquin birds' nests eaten in China may
be described as young Mr. Fudge describes the Paris

BimOlK TEAITS. 127

grisettes : "Eather eatable things, those grisettes, by
the bye !" So are the birds' nests, composed as they are
of small sheU-fish and a glutinous matter, supplied by the
plumed inhabitant of the edible houses. Bears' paws,
roUed ia pepper and nutmeg, dried in the sun, and subse-
quently soaked in rice-water, and boiled in the gravy of a
kid, form a dish that would make ecstatic the grave
Confucius himself.

There are sonie men for whom cooks toil ia vain. The
Duke of Wellington's cook had serious doubts as to his
master being a great man, — he so loved simple fare.
Suwarrow was another General who was the despair of
cooks. His biographer says of him, that he vyas at din-
ner when Col. Hamilton appeared before him to announce
an Austrian victory over the French. The General had
one huge plate before him, a sort of Irish stew, with
every thing for sauce, from which he ate greedily, spitting
out the bones, " as was his custom." He was so delighted
with the message and the messenger, that he received
Mm as Galba did Icelus, the annoimcer of Nero's death :
with his unwiped mouth, he began kissing the latter, (as
the half-shaven Duke of Newcastle once did the bearer of
some welcome intelligence,) and insisted on his sitting
down and eating from the General's plate, " without cere-
mony." The great Coligny was, like Suwarrow, a rapid
eater; but he was more nice in his diet. The charac-
teristic of Coligny was, that he always used to eat his
tooth-picks !

According to ancient rule, an invitation not replied to
within four-and-twenty hours was deemed accepted ; and
from an invitation given and accepted, nothing releases
the contracting parties but illness, imprisonment, or death !
Nothing suffers so much by delay as dinner ; and if punc-
tuality be the politeness of Kings, it should also be the
policy both of guests and cooks. Lack of punctuality oa

128 TABIE TEAITS.

the part of tlie fonner has been illustrated in the cases of
men, of whom it is said that they never saw soup and
fish but at their own tables. The late Lord Dudley-
Ward used to cite two brothers as startling examples of
want of punctuality : " If you asked Eobert for Wednes-
day, at seven, you got Charles on Thursday, at eight !"
On the other hand, an unpunctual cook is scarcely to be
accounted a cook; and an unpunctual master is not
worthy of a cook whose dinner is ready to be served at
the moment it has been ordered. The great "artiste"
who dismissed his patron because he never sat down to
dinner until after he had kept it waiting for an hour, was
thoroughly acquainted with the dignity of his profession.

At the beginning of the present century, it was the
custom in France to serve the soup immediately before
the company entered the dining-room. The resulting
advantage was a simultaneous operation on the part of
the guests. The innovation was introduced by Mile.
Emilie Contat, the actress ; but it was tolerated only for
a season. It was, at the same period, of rigorous neces-
sity, when eggs were eaten at dinner, to crush the empty
shell. To allow the latter to leave the table whole was a
breach in good manners ; but the reason of this prandial
law I have never been able to discover. MUe. Contat
was almost as famous for her love of good cheer as our
own Foote, and both were, equally often, " on hospitable
thoughts intent."

It would appear that in Foote's time Scotland was not
famous for a lavish hospitality. The old actor gave some
glorious dinners to the first people in the dty, and his
preliminary proceedings thereto were intended to be
highly satirical upon what he considered Scottish parsi-
mony. Every night, before retiring to bed, he used to
paper the curls of his wig with Scotch bank-notes, — pro-
*nissory paper, as he said, of no value. When his cook

BUTKEB TEAITS. 129

waited on him at breakfast-time for orders, "Sam"
gravely -uncurled his locks, flung the papers to the
attendant, as purchase- money for the necessary provi-
sions, and sent her to market in a sedan-chair. But the
old acDor was as eccentric and ostentatious at his own
table in London, as he was any where. "When the wines
were placed on the board, he solemnly, and as it were
with a shade of disgust, inquired, "If any body drank
port?" As no one dared to answer in the affirmative at
his table, (though the owner took it " medicinally,") he
would direct the servant to "take away the ink !"

If Foote disliked port, Bentley, on the other hand,
had a contempt for claret, " which," said he, " would be
port, if it could!" The latter individual was not Hke
Flood, the Irishman, who used to raise his glass of claret
aloft, with a cry, " If this be war, may we never have
peace!"

Comparatively speaking, claret is a very modem wine.
Indeed, none of the Bourdeaux wines were fashionable,
that is, consumed in large quantities out of the province,
before the reign of Louis XV. That Sovereign is said to
have asked Richelieu if Bourdeaux wines were " drink-
able." "From father to son the Bourbon race," says
Bimgener, in his incomparable work, " Trois Sermons sous
Louis XIV." ate and drank with relish ; and it was no
jest that among the three talents attributed by the old
song to Henri rV., (their ancestor.) was numbered that of a
" good drinker." " None of them, however, with tiie ex-
ception of the Eegent, carried it to excess ; but what was
not excess for them, would have been so for many others.
Louis XIV., at the simimit of his glory, and Louis XVI.,
surrounded by his jailers, submitted equally to the laws
of their imperious appetite."

When Louis XV. asked Richelieu if Bourdeaux wines
were drinkable, the Duke answered him in terms which I

130 TABIE TEAITS.

may cite, because of their correctness. " Sire," lie replied,
" they have, what they call, 'white Sauterne,' which, though
far from heing so good as that of Monrachet, or that of
the little slopes in Burgundy, is still not to be despised.
There is also a certain wine from Grave, which smacks
of the flint, like an old carbine. It resembles Moselle
wine, but keeps better. They have besides, in Medoc and
Bazadois, two or three sorts of red wine, of which they
boast a great deal. It is nectar fit for the gods, if one is
to beheve them. Yet it is certainly not comparable to
the wine of Upper Burgundy. Its flavour is not bad,
however, and it has an indescribable sort of duU, satur-
nine acid, which is not disagreeable. Besides, one can
drink as much as one wUl. It puts people to sleep, and
that is all!" "It puts people to sleep," said the King:
"send for a pipe of it!" This is as just a description of
good, healthy Bourdeaux, as was that given by Sheridan,
I believe, of Champagne: "It does not enter," he said,
" and steal your reason ; it simply makes a run-away
knock at a man's head, and there's an end of it !"

But we are indulging in too much wine at dinner. Let
us return to the solids. Of the self-important personages
who daily cross our path, perhaps the most important cir-
cumstance of their life is, that they have dined every day
of it. But it is a necessity. All men must, or should ;
and sorrow of the saddest sort is subdued before the
anguish of appetite. As Jules Janin says, in his " Gaietes
CJiamp^tres," " Nemorin takes leave of Estelle, and returns
home, overcome by hunger. Don Kyrie Eleison de Mon-
tauban, after running, all day long, after Mademoiselle
Blaisir de-ma-vie, goes and knocks at the door of the
neighboiuing chateau, and asks to be invited to supper.
Niobe herself, in the ' IKad,' as afHicted as woman earn be,
does not forget, when night comes, to take a little refresh-
ment." If Seneca derided such doings, it was only after

DDnfEE *EAITS. 131

dinner, when appetite failed him. Human nature is made
up of sentiment and hunger; and Hood's sentimentalist
was not imnatural with his epicurean reminiscences, when
he said, —

'"Twas at Christmas, I think, that I met with Miss Chase, —
Yes, for Morris had ask'd me to dine ;
And I thought I had never beheld such a face.
Or so noble a turkey and chine."

This conglomeration of feeling and feeding is mixed up
with all the acts of most importance in our hves ; and
though Bacchus, Cupid, Comus, and Diana he no longer
the deities or the heati of the earth, the substantial
worship remains ; and, as M. BrOlat Savarin asserts,
under the most serious of all beliefs, we celebrate by
repasts not only births, baptisms, and marriages, but
even interments.

The last-named writer fixes the era of dinners from the
time when men, ceasing to Uve upon fruits, took to flesh ;
for then the fanuly necessarily assembled to devour what
had been slain and cooked. They know the pleasures of
eating, which is the satisfaction of the animal appetite ;
but the true, refined pleasures of the table date only from
the time when Prometheus fired the soul with heavenly
flame, from which sprang intellect, with a host of radiant
followers in its train. A good dinner sharpens wit, while
it softens the heart. A hungry man is as slow at a joke
as he is at a favour.

Nelson never knew the sensation of "fear," but when
he was asked to dine with a Mayor. He had a horror of
great dinners generally : and he was right ; for true intel-
lectual enjoyment is seldom there. Horace, with his modest
repasts and fair wine, was something of the same opinion
as Horatio. Where the wine is indifierent, the guests
too numerous and ill-assorted, the spirit heavy, the time
short, and the repast too eagerly consumed, there is no
K 2

132 TABLE TBAITS.

dinner, in the legitimate sense of the word. I never so
much admired one of the most hospitable of Amphitryons,
my friend M. Watier, as when he once prefaced one of
his exquisite dinners by saying, with a solemn smile,
" 3fes amis, ne nous pressons pas !" I thought of Talley-
rand and his advice to a too willing Secretary : — " Surtout,
pas de zele ! " The most accomplished professor of his
time has laid down, as rules for securing to their utmost
degree the prandial pleasures of table, that the guests do
not exceed twelve, so that the conversation be general ;
that they be of varied occupations, but analogous tastes ;
that the lighting, cheerful cleanliness, and temperature of
the dining-room be carefully considered ; that the viands
be exquisite rather than numerous, and the wines of first
quality, each in its degree ; the progression of the former
from the more substantial to the more light; of the
latter, from the more brilliant to the more perfumed. It
is further enjoined that there be no accelerated move-
ment ; all the guests are to consider themselves as fellow-
travellers, bound to reach one point at the same time.
The rules for the "after-dinner" in the drawing-room are
those more commonly observed in this country, with the
exception that " punch" expired when lemons ceased to be
dear at the Peace ; but the concluding rule is worth
noticing : — " That no one withdraw before eleven, and that
all be asleep by midnight."

I have spoken of the aids which the French nobility
have given to table enjoyment. To them may be added
the innovation introduced by Talleyrand, of offering Par-
mesan with soup, and presenting after it 'a glass of dry
Madeira. Talleyrand had one thing in common with St.
Peter, — he was hungry at the hour of mid-day, the dinner
time of the Jews ; and he would have also come under
the anathema in Ecclesiastes which is levelled against
the Princes who eat in the morning.

BIirirEE TEAITS. 133

Plato was rather shocked at those people of Italy who
made two substantial meals daily ; and Seneca was satis-
fied with one meal, — a dinner of bread and figs. The
Roman Priests of Mars dined joUily and sumptuously in a
secret room of the temple, and they would not be dis-
turbed. They were Hke BaiUie de Suifren, who, being
waited on in India by a deputation, just as he was sitting
down to dine, sent out word that his religion would not
allow of his interrupting his repast; and the delegates
retired, profoundly struck by the strictness of his con-
science. The original dinner hour of the mediseval ages
was, as I have elsewhere stated, ten o'clock, the dixieme
Mure ; hence the name. It was not till the reign of Louis
XIV. that so late an hour as noon was fixed for the
repast. It is clear, however, that we have not so much
changed the hours as changed the names of om- meals.
A French historian shows us how a Dauphia of France
diued (at ten o'clock) in the fifteenth century : —

" As an every-day fare, the Dauphin took for his diu-
ner rice pottage, with leeks or cabbage, a piece of beef,
another of salt pork, a dish of six hens or twelve pullets,
divided in two, a piece of roast pork, cheese, and fruit."
The supper was nearly as plentiful ; but, on particular
days, the bill of fare was varied. It is added, that the
Barons of the Court had always the half of the quantity
of the Dauphin ; the EJoights, the quarter ; and the Equer-
ries and Chaplaiits, the eighth. " Take pride from Priests,
and nothing remains," once remarked an Encyclopsedist
to Voltaire. "Umph!" said Voltaire; "do you, then,
reckon gluttony for nothing ? " Gluttony, at least, does
not seem to have characterized the Dauphm's Chaplains,
in the fifteenth century, seeing that they took an eighth
where a Baron had half.

But there was a late Prince of Bourbon, who dined
after a more singular fashion than that of the Dauphins,

134l TABLE TEAITS.

his ancestors. I allude to the Prince mentioned by
Maurepas, and whose imagination was so sick, that he
fancied himself a hare, and would not allow a hell to be
rung, lest it should terrify him into the woods, where he
might be shot by his own game-keepers, and afterwards
served up at 'his own table. At another time, he had a
fancy that he would look well dished up ; and, dreaming
himself a cauliflower, he stuck his feet in the mould of his
kitchen-garden, and called upon his people to come and
water him ! At length, he pronounced himself dead, and
refused to dine at all, as an insult to his spiritual entity.
He would have died, had he not been visited by two
friends,' who introduced themselves as his late father,
and the deceased Marechal de Luxembourg ; and who
solemnly invited him to descend with them to the shades,
and dine with the ghost of Marechal Turenne. The
melancholy Prince accepted with alacrity, and went down
with them to a cellar already prepared for the banquet of
the departed ; and he not only made a hearty meal, but,
as long as his fancy made of himself a ghost, he insisted
every day on dining with congenial shadows in the coal-
cellar! In spite of this monomaniacal fantasy, he was
excessively shrewd in aU matters of business, especially
where his own interests were concerned.

Thus much — ^briefly and imperfectly, I fear — for Dinner
Traits. In the next chapter we will put something on
them. And as we have been drawing examples from
foUy, let us end this section by adding a maxim full of
wisdom. " Be not made a beggar," says Hcclesiasticus,
" by banqueting upon borrowing, when thou hast nothing in
thy purse." If this maxim were generally adopted, there
might be fewer dinners given, but there would be more
dinners paid for. But some people are like the ancient
Belgians, who borrowed, and, indeed, lent, upon promises
of ■ repayment in the world to come ! Many a dinner-

DIimEE TEAITS. 135

giver belongs to the class of the "borrowing Belgians of
antiquity. After all, there was, perhaps, more intended
honesty in the compact than we can distinguish. A com-
pact far less honest was made some years ago by an Irish
Baronet, who had given so many dinners for which he
had not paid, that he was compelled to pledge his plate
in order to raise means to satisfy the most pressing of
his creditors. Some time subsequently, he induced the
pawnbroker to lend him the plate for one evening, on hire ;
the pawnbroker's men were to wait at the dinner in
livery, and convey the silver back as soon as the repast
was concluded. The dinner was given and enjoyed, and
the company made the attendants drunk, helped the
Baronet to pack up his forks, spoons, ladles, and epergnes,
with which he set off for Paris, where some of them
afterwards visited him at the little dinners he used to
give in the Rue de. Bourbon, and laughed over the matter
as a very capital jest.

I win only add here the record of the fact, that sitting
at table to drink, after dinner was over, was introduced
by Margaret Atheling, the Saxon Queen of Scotland.
She was shocked to see the Scottish gentlemen rise from
table before grace could be said by her Chaplain, Turgot ;
and she offered a cup of choice wine to all who would
remain. Thence the fashion of hard drinking following
the "thanksgiving."

THE MATERIALS FOR DINING.

"Ail fIjESH is GEASS;" and grass has been the
foundation of all feasts, in a double sense. It was not
only a part of the early repast, in some shape or another,
by derivation rather than, immediately, but it formed the
most ancient seats occupied by primitive and pastoral
guests in very remote times. Dr. Johnson approved of
asparagus being called " grass." Romulus thought grass
a sacred emblem, or he would not have suddenly eon-
verted his twelve lay foster-brothers into a priesthood
to look after it. When Baber had defeated the Afghans
of Kohat, they approached him in despair, and, accord-
ing to their custom when in extremities, with grass
between their teeth, to signify, as the imperial autobio-
grapher says, " We are your oxen." Baber treated them
worse than oxen ; for the amiable savage says, " All that
were taken alive were beheaded by my order, and at the
next halting-place we erected a minaret of their skulls."
And the conqueror dined pleasantly in front of the monu-
ment.

My friend, Captain Lionel da Costa, tells me, that on
accompanying (en amateur) a French force on a razzia
against an Arab tribe in Algeria, he witnessed the employ-
ment of grass as an emblem of defiance rather than of
submission. The French officers had assembled the Arab
Chiefs, and, telling them that the foreigners had fiUed up
their wells, carried off their cattle, and burned their
dwellings, exhorted them to submission, asking them

THE MATEEIALS TOE DDTING. 137

what they would do further against a country so powerful
as France? The Arabs, as if impelled simultaneously,
stooped to the earth, plucked some scant blades of grass
there growing, and began chewing the same in angry
silence : this was' aU their reply, and by it they intimated
that they would eat what the earth gave, like the beasts
that are upon it, rather than surrender. Their enemies
could not refrain from admiring and feeding such adver-
saries ; their mute eloquence was worth more than any
thing uttered to tyrants by Power's statue of the Greek
Slave, which, according to Mrs. Elizabeth Browning,
" thunders white silenee," — a silence that must have been
akin to that in the French Tragedy, " silence qui se Jit
entendre!"

Soup, as I have remarked, is not a bad preparation for
the stomach. Some one calls it the " preface of a dinner,"
adding, however, that a good work needs no preface.
Soup is of very ancient date. Eebecea and Jacob ate of
a pottage, in which the meat was cut into small bits
iefore the muscular fibres had cooled and become har-
dened, and stewed in nulk, thickened with meal and herbs.
The famous French gastronomist, the Marquis de Cussy,
was orthodox in his gastronomy, fed well, but heeded the
church. His favourite soup in Lent was an onion soup,
composed of a score of small bulbs, weU cleaned, sliced,
and put into a stew-pan, with a lump of fresh butter and
a little sugar. They were turned over the fire till they
became of a fine golden colour, when they were moistened
with broth, and the necessary quantity of bread added.
Before the soup was served, its excellence was perfected
by the addition of two small glasses of very old Cognac
brandy. This Lent fare was, however, only the preface
to salmon and asparagus, with which the orthodox epicure
mortified his appetite.

The famous Careme did with the soups he discovered,

138 TABLE TEAITS.

what tho most famous navigators have done with the
new territories on. which they were the first to land;
namely, give them the names of the most illustrious con-
temporaries then existing. Eoyalty was honoured iu the
" Fotage Conde ;" music in that of "Boieldieu;" and
the medical faculty, which Careme generally despised,
in the " S(ywpes a la Bromsais, Soques, and Segalas ; "
poetry was illustrated in the " Lamartme ; " history in the
" Biimesnil;" and philosophy in the " Potage Buffbn."
The last name he thus hestowed, was to his last culinary
inspiration just before death, when he conferred on a
vegetable soup the name of " Victor Hugo." It was after
reading the " Messeniennes" that he created the " Mate-
lotte a la Delavigne ; " and he paid the doctor who had
cured him of an indigestion, by inventing the dish of fish
which he called " Ferche a la Oaubert." And with this
record we will put the fish on our own table.

" It is only the Arabs of the desert that affect to despise
fish." This eastern proverb is tantamount to the more
homely one of, " The grapes are sour ;" for the Arabs only
affect to despise that which they cannot readily obtain.
The Jews were prohibited from eating fishes without
scales or fins. The Egyptian Priests cared not for fish
of any sort, but they generally allowed the people to eat
■wiih what appetite they chose, of what the priesthood
decHned to taste. It is said in the legend, that St. Kevin
lived by the fish he caught in the Lake of Glendaloch ;
and that when the celebrated beauty tempted him, she
did it by flattery and suggestion : —

" ' Ton 're a raxe hand at fisHng,' says Kate,

' It 's yourself, deai, that knows how to hook them ;
But, when you have caught them, agrah 1

Don't you want a young woman to cook them ?'"

G-atis, Queen of Spain, was something like Mr. Lover's
"Kate ;" for, if her subjects caught fish well, she it was

THE MATEEIAIiS TOB DINING. 139

wlio first taught them how to cook what they caught,
and how to enjoy what they cooked.

When philosopljers were occupied with inquiries touch-
ing the soul of an oyster, fish was probably not a popular
diet. It certainly was not so in Greece, until a com-
paratively late period. Then fish became fashionable : the
legislature secured their freshness by decreeing that no
seller should sit down until he had sold his entire stock ;
sages discussed their quaUties, and tragic writers intro-
duced heroes holding dialogues on the quaUties of fish-
sauce. There was a Greek society at that day " against
cruelty to fish," by devouring what also, allegedly, made
the devourer ferocious and inhuman ; but general society
did not allow its appetite to be influenced thereby.

The Romans were enthusiastic for the mullet. It was
for them the fish, par excellence. It was sometimes served
up sis pounds iu weight, and such a fish was worth £60
sterling. It was cooked on the table, for the benefit and
pleasure of the guests. In a glass vessel filled with brine
made from water, the blood of the mackerel, and salt,
the live mullet, stripped of its scales, was enclosed ; and
as its fine pink colour passed through its dying grada-
tions, until paleness and death ensued, the convives looked
on admiringly, and lauded the spectacle.

The turbot was next in estimation ; but as, occasionally,
offending slaves were flung into the turbot preserves for
the fish to feed upon, some gastronomists have affected to
be horror-stricken at the idea of eating a turbot a la
Momaine ; quite forgetting that so many of our sea-fish,
in their own domain, feed largely on the hiunan bodies
which accident, or what men call by that name, casts
into the deep. Our own early ancestors in Britain were
said to have entirely abstained fi-om fish. In later days,
however, here as in France, the finny tribes were pro-
tected by royal decrees ; and certain fish were named — ^the

140 TABLE TEAITS.

sturgeon was one — as to be caught for the royal table
alone. In the same days porpoises and seals were devoured
by the commonalty, and the latter knew not the art of
the cooks of Louis XIV., who could so dress fish as to
give it the taste of any flesh they pleased to fix on as an
object of imitation. By this means, the King in Lent,
while he obeyed the church, enjoyed the gratification of
feeling as though he were cheating Heaven, — and with
impunity, too !

The most curious fish of which I have ever read, were
those of a lake attached to a Burgundian convent, and
which were always of the same number as the monks.
If one of these sickened and died, the same circumstance
occurred with the fish ; and if a new brother appeared in
the refectory, there was also sure to be found a new
denizen in the pond. These fish were, of course, piously
inclined ; but they did not come up, in that respect, to the
parrot of Cardinal Ascanius, which could not only repeat
the Creed, but could maintain a thesis ! I believe that the
Burgundian fish were principally perch; and they are
an eccentric fish. Arthur Young says, that " about the
year 1760, perch first appeared in all the lakes of Ireland
and in the Shannon at the same time."

As a singularity with respect to the cooking of fish, I
may mention that observed by the Eomans with the
sepia, or " cuttle-fish." They invariably took out the eyes
before boiling it. It is in allusion to this custom that
Trachalion says, in the Budens,-^

"Age nunc jam.
Jute oculos elidere, itidem ut sepiisfaeiunt eogui."

I think I have read somewhere, that the cuttle-fish
was esteemed a fitting sacrifice to the gods ; but I do not
know if pious people had their pet sepiw, as they had
their pet lambs and pigs, Q' Sunt domi agni et porci

THE MATEETAIS FOE Drama. 141

meres" says the orthodox hushand in the Budens,)
reared for the purpose of being offered at the altars.

The sturgeon is at this day, in China, reserved for the
imperial table. At those of Greece it was introduced by
sound of trumpet, and it was almost as esteemed a subject
at those of Eome, until Vespasian condescended not to
eare for it, and to bring other fish into fashion. " It is
caviare to the general," is a proverb which Shakspeare
has popularized. The caviare is the roe of the sturgeon
dried; that of the larger sturgeon, which produces hundred-
weights of eggs, and tons of oU, is caviare for the general,
and is not worth eating. The delicate white caviare is the
produce of the smaller sturgeon, and it is highly esteemed
by gastronomists. It forms a great portion of the food
taken by the Greeks during their long Lent.

We have heard of an American who tried to tame an
oyster. The Komans were more successful with their
sea-eels, which would come when called, and feed from
the hands of men, who occasionally fattened them upon
live slaves. Vedius PoUio would have grown sick and
disgusted, if he had been asked to eat one of these slaves ;
but he was particularly fond of the fish that had been fed
upon such fare ; and so he only ate his slaves at second-
hand ; for their flesh was declared by him to have greatly
improved the taste of the eel. Epicures with less fero-
cious appetites preferred the fish that had been fattened
upon veal steeped in blood. ViteUius put the fish alto-
gether out of fashion by only eating the roes, which were
procured for him kt a great expense ; and Heliogabalus
caused even the roes to cease to be modish, by forcing
them upon the Mediterranean peasants, who got as sick
of their repasts as English servants in the Scottish High-
lands grow weary of the everlasting sameness of their
dinners consisting of venison and salmon. The Egyp-
tians placed the seareel in their Pantheon ; and even the

142 TABLE XBAIXS.

unortliodox cannot deny that he was as gooa a deity as
any to be found there ; and we are told that among the
Sybarites, the fishers and vendors of the eel were exempt
from taxation ! The origin of these honours is, however,
unknown. Nearly as great were offered, even in Eome, to
the fish known as the sea-wolf, which abounded in the most
filthy parts of the Tiber, and which some epicures distin-
guished by the appellation of " child of the gods." The
Eomans paid high prices for it, as they did for the regi-
cide lamprey, — a fish which killed our first Henry, and
which Italian cooks used to kiU, as the murderers did
maudHn Clarence, in his Malmsey butt, by plunging the
victim, decked for the sacrifice with a nutmeg in his
mouth, and a clove in either gUl, into a pan of Candian
wine ; after which, covered with almonds, bread crumbs,
and spices, he was exposed to a slow fire, and then to the
jaws that impatiently awaited him. It was once as
popular as the tunny, — a fish, by the way, which once so
enriched the city of Sinope, that the coin minted there
bore the figure of the fish. Where they are found at all,
it is generally in shoals ; but these are never to the
extent which Pliny speaks of, when he says that they so
obstructed the fleet of Alexander, that the pilots of the
Macedonian madman were compelled to shape a different
course ; and though they are to be found in something
like abundance in the Mediterranean, yet tourists who
resort thither must not expect to see realized the gay
picture of Vernet. It does not appear, however, that the
tunny was ever in such favour at ancient tables as the
eel, which was greedily eaten where it was not devoutly
worshipped, or where medical ordinances had not been
directed against it, as unfavourable to the weak of di-
gestion, and perilous to those affected by pulmonary
diseases. The pike, emblem of fecmidity and example of
Lengthened years, was still less popular. The carp, which

THE MATEEIALS TOE DINING, 143

even surpasses the pite In fecundity, and is a long liver
to boot, was, on tte other hand, an especial favourite, but
it was served up with sauces that would certainly not
tempt a modem gastronomist to eat a fish which is
seldom worth eating, and which is almost defiant of diges-
tion. Carp, reduced to a pulp, and served up with sows'
paps, and yolk of egg, must have been as nasty as gold
fish with carrots and myrtle leaves, — ^the delight of the
Eoman loungers at their " Blackwall," on the Tiber. So
the Greeks spoiled good cod by eating it with grated
cheese and vinegar ; ^d the Romans made perch more
indigestible than it was before, by swallowing Damascus
plums with it. But the ancients had strangely accom-
modating stomachs : a sauce of honey could induce them
to eat cuttle-fish. GarHe and cheese made the sword-
fish delicacies ; the rhombus floated into Greek stomachs
on a sauce of wine and brine ; the ladies of Eome ate
onions with the muzU, and pine-nuts with the pilchard.
The more refined Greeks, on the other hand, would not
touch the pilchard ; and the same diiference of taste existed
with regard to the loach ; while, again, both Eome and
Greece imited in admiration of the gudgeon. To neither
of these countries was the herring known. The Scots
found the fish, and the Dutch bought, pickled, and sold,
or ate them ; and it is said that Charles V., in 1536, ate a
herring upon the tomb of Beuckels, the first Salter of that
fish, and therewith friend of the poor, and enricber of the
State. The profit realized by Holland exceeded two mil-
lions and a half sterling, annually. But neither Greece
nor Eome felt the want of the herring while there was an
abundant supply of the favourite oyster. This shell-fish
was easily procured by the Greeks from Pelorus, Abydos,
and Polarea ; by the Eomans, from Brindes, the Lake of
Lucrinus, Armorica, and even from Britain. The Eomans
were hardly worthy of the delicacy, seeing that they

144 TABLE TEAITS.

abused it by mineing oysters, muscles, and sea hedge-
hogs together, stewed the whole with pine-almonds and
hot condiments, and devoured the mixture scalding!
Others, however, ate them raw, when they were opened
at table by a slave ; and the larger the fish, the more the
Eoman epicures liked them. They were not only eaten
before a feast to stimulate the appetite, but during a
banquet, when the appetite began to be palled. They
excited to fresh exertion, and it was a cleaner custom
(perhaps) than that imperial one of exoiierating the
stomach by tickling the throat wi^h a peacock's feather.
The Bourdeaux oyster was the favourite fish of most of the
Emperors, It is very inferior to the Whitstahle oyster,
however, and also to that which goes hy the name of
" Colchester," and which is not caught there. The pas-
sion for the savoury fish is well Ulustrated in the epitaph
which says, — ,

" Tom

lies buried in these cloisters ;
If, at the last trump, ,
He does not quickly jump.

Only cry ' Oysters I ' "

If the Emperors afiected oysters, the gods themselves
patronized mussels, a dish of which was contributed by
Jupiter to the wedding banquet of Hebe. The mytholo-
gical sanction has, however, failed to render the mussel
popular^ and for good reasons. It is often extremely
poisonous, and in certain conditions of the stomach they
who eat muscles may reckon upon being attacked by
violent cutaneous disorders, painfully participated in by
the oppressed intestines.

It was otherwise with the tortoise, the blood of which
was reckoned good in cases of ophthalmia, and the flesh of
which was eagerly devoured. ' The natural history of the
products of those early times seems to have been written

THE MATEEiAis FOE miTiira. 145

by pLilosophers with very poetical imaginations. We
read of shells of tortoises being converted into roofs of
cottages, as we are told by PHny of crawfish measuring
four cubits in length. It was then that men ate lobsters
au naturel, and crabs converted into sausages. But this
latter dish was a more dainty one than that afforded by
the frog, — ^the abhorrence of early gastronomists, but the
dehght of many French and German epicures, who first
find delight in angling for these unclean beasts with a
bait of yellow soap, and then swallowing, with delight
more intense, the hind-quarters of the animal they have
caught. But if the moderns swallow frogs, the ancients
ate the polypus, — and which were the nastiest even I could
not tell ! The Romans were especially fond of fish ; and
some " fast" epicures among them not only had preserve
ponds of fish on the roofs of their houses, but Uttle rivu-
lets stocked therewith around the dinner-table, whence
the guests selected their fish, and delivered them to be
cooked.

It was once thought that the prawn, or shrimp, was
somehow necessary to the production of soles, acting,
it was beheved, as a sort of nurse, or foster-parent, to the
spawn. But this I suppose to be about as true as that
soles always swim in pairs, with three-pennyworth of
shrimps behind them, ready for sauce.

I remember two anecdotes connected with fish at table,
which a guest may retail when he is next at that period
of the repast. Talleyrand was dining, in the year 1805,
with the Minister of Finance, who did the honours of his
house in the very best style. A very fine carp was on
the table opposite to Talleyrand, but the fish was already
cold. "That is a magnificent carp," said the financier:
" how do you like it ? It came from my estate of Vir-sur-
Aisne." " Did it ?" said Talleyrand, " but why did you
not have it cooked Tiere ?" This reply was not as fatal to

ii

146 TABLE TBAITS.

the utterer of it, as a remark once made by Poodle Byng
at Bel voir Castle. "Ah, ah!" he exclaimed, as he saw
the fish uncovered at the Duke of Rutland's board, " my
old friend Haddock ! I have not seen a haddock, at a
gentleman's table, since I was a boy." The implication
shut the gates of Belvoir on the unlucky Poodle from,
that day forward. He was never again the Duke's
guest.

Some French writers have asserted, after tracing the
" vestiges of creation" according to a fashion of their own,
that man originally sprang from the ocean ; and that his
present condition is one of development, the consequence of
life ashore, and exposure to atmospheric air ! According
to this theory, I suppose, Venus Anadyomene was the Eve
of our fishy generation, and mermaids show the transition
state, when our ancestors were of both land and sea, and
yet properly of neither ! ,

As judges of fish, the moderns are inferior to the
ancients. A Greek or Eoman epicure could, at first
sight, tell in what waters the fish before him had been
caught. This sort of wisdom is, however, not uncommon
to oyster-eaters, who swallow so greedily what contains
little nourishment, but what may be easily digested. It
was not unusual, some years ago, in France, for a gour-
mand to prepare for dinner by swallowing a gross, or a
dozen dozen, of oysters ! Twelve of them, including the
liquor, wiU weigh four ounces ; and the gross, four pounds
(Troy) !— a pretty amount of ballast whereupon to take in
freight. The skin of such a feeder had need be in a good
condition ; but so, indeed, ought that of every one who
cares for his digestion. When we remember that a person
in health, who takes eight pounds of aliment during
twenty-four hours of his wakefulness, discharges five of
the eight pounds solely through the pores by perspiration,
it will at once be seen tl)at to hold the skin clean, and

THE MATEEIAXS FOB DINING. 147

keep tjie pores unobstructed, is of first-rate necessity for
the sake of digestion and comfort.

There are sea-board populations who live almost exclu-
sively on fish. They feed their domestic animals upon it,
and with it manure their ground ; so that the pork they
may occasionally indulge in, acquires a fish-like flavour,
and their bread is but a consequence of the plentiful rot-
tenness of sprats. Such populations are usually lean and
sallow, but they are strong-muscled and active-Umbed ;
and altogether they afibrd good testimony in favour of
the efficacy of a fish diet, when no better is to be had.
As a diet, fi^h is only so far stimulating that it aug-
ments the lymph rather than renews the blood. It is a
puzzle to many gastronomic philosophers that fish was
so constant a diet of the monkish orders. Its heating
quality hardly suited men who were required to be ever
coolly contemplative. But this matter I leave to the
philosophers to determine. One of them, — that is, a gas-
tronomic philosopher, — M. Payot, says, that " if you would
have a dinner composed altogether of fish, the meal
should consist of "a turbot, a large salmon done in a
court-bouillon, flanked with aromatic herbs, and coverd
with a fresh winding-sheet of delicate seasoning. In such
dinners, sea-fish have, undoubtedly, the fii:st rank ; and
among them the Cherbourg lobster, the shrimp of Hon-
fleur, the cray-fish of the Seine, and the smelts of that
river's mouth, and numerous fresh-water fish mingle
agreeably. Salmon and turbot should be done briskly;
drink afterwards a glass of those old wines which give a
digestive action to the stomach." With M. Fayot,
the turbot is " the king of fish, especially in Lent, as it is
then of most majestic size. You may serve up salmon
with as much ornament as you will-, but a turbot asks for
nothing but aristocratic simplicity. On the day after he
makes his first appearance, it is quite another affair. It
1 2

148 TABLE TEAITS.

may be then disguised ; and the best maimer of effecting
this is, to dress him a la Bechamel, — a preparation thus
called from the Marquis de Bechamel, who, in the reign
of Louis XIV., for ever immortalized himself by this one
ragout."

The Ahncmach des Gourmands speaks of a Lorraine carp,
which was fed on bread and wine, and which was twice
sent to the Paris market, in the care of a courier who
travelled by the mail. It returned to its native waters in
default of a purchaser willing to give thirty louis-d'ors
for the monstrous delicacy. This was when fish dinners
were much ia vogue in Paris. There was then a tahle-
d'hdte for a fish repast only, held at a house profanely called,
" The Name of Jesus." This house stood in the " Cloitre
St. Jacques de I'Hopital," and every Wednesday and
Friday it was crowded by the Clergy, who dined mag-
nificently on maigre fare, for about 2s. a head. It is of
one of these that Fayot recounts a pleasant story, the
locality, however, of which was the Rocher de Cancale.
A certain Abbe dined there so copiously off salmon, that a
fit of indigestion was the consequence. Some days after-
wards, T;h€n celebrating Mass, the savoury memories of
the fish flocked into his mind; and he was heard to
murmur, not the med cul'pd of the " Gon/iteor," but, as
he quietly beat his breast, " Ah ! that capital salmon !
that capital salmon ! "

Of the more nutritive species of fish, turbot, cod,
whitmg, haddock, flounder, and sole, are the least heat-
ing. Of these, the cod is the least easy of digestion,,
though turbot is quite as difficult of digestion when
much lobster sauce is taken with it. The crimping of
cod facihtates the digesting of the fish. Sole and whiting
are easily digested. Salmon is nutritive, but it is oUy,
heating, and not very digestible; far less so than salmon
trout. The favourite parts of most of these fish

THE MATEEIALS TOB BIITIITa. 149

are the least fit for weak stomachs, and the most trying
to strong ones. Salmon, caught after the spawning season
has commenced, is almost poisonous ; and eels are objec-
tionable at all seasons, from their excessive oiUness. Shell-
fish generally may be put down as "indigestible," parti-
cularly the under-boiled lobsters of the London market.
The mussel is especially so ; and these are not rendered
innocuous by the removal of the beard, which is not
more hurtful than any other part. SheU-fish, and, indeed,
fish generally, affects the skin, by sympathy with the
stomach. The eflPect is, sometimes, as if a poison had been
generated : at others it very sensibly affects the odour of
the cutaneous secretions. This effect was thoroughly
imderstood when the Levitical Priests, like those of Egypt,
were prohibited from eating, fish. The prohibition was
based upon a jijst principle.

The Egyptian and Levitical Priests were more obedient to
such prohibitions than St. Patrick, who once, overcome by
hunger, helped himself to pork chops on a fast-day. An
angel met him with the forbidden cutlets in his hand ; but
the saint popped then\ into a pail of water, pattered an
Ave-Mary over them, and our indulgent Lady heeded the
appeal by turning them into a couple of respectable and
orthodox-looking trout. The angel looked perplexed, and
went away, with his index finger on the side of his nose.
And see what came of it ! In Ireland, meat dipped into
water, and christened by the name of "St. Patrick's
Fish," is commonly eaten there even on fast-days, and
to the great regret of all those who eat greedily enough
to acquire an indigestion.

St. Patrick's fish ought to have fetched as high a price
as the four cod which formed the sole supply in BiUings-
gate-market on one of the great frost-days in Januarj',
1809 ; they were sold to one dealer for fourteen guineas.
During the same month, salmon was sold at a guinea a

150 TABLE TEAITS.

pound ! When fish is so high-priced, it is time to have
done with it. So, enlevez ! and let us to the succeeding
courses of viands more suhstantial. While the fish is
being removed, I wiU merely relate that it was the prac-
tice of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who gave plentiful dinners
to admirable men, in his house in Leicester-square, always
to choose his own fish, of which he was a capital judge.
He was, on those occasions, ever the first visitor to
the fish-shop stUL existing, in its primitivS simplicity, in
Coventry-street. He selected the best ; and later in the
day, his niece, Miss Palmer, used to call, dispute the
price, and pay for the fish. Sir Joshua's table is said to
have been too crowded, both as to guests and dishes,
while there was scant attendance, and a difficulty of
getting served; but the hilarity compensated for all.
The guests enjoyed themselves with a vulgar delight that
would have very much rufiied the dignity of such a pom-
pous president at repasts as the bewigged, bepatched, and
bepowdered Sir Peter Lely.

With the introduction of animal food is dated the
era of professional cooks ; and that era itself is set down
by M. Soyer, a competent authority, as having com-
menced in the year of the world 1656. Other authorities
give 2412 as the proper date, when Prometheus, or Fore-
thought, as his name implies, taught men the use of fire,
and cooked an ox. But I think that both dates and
mythology are somewhat loose here, and that the period
is easier of conjecture than of determination. Ceres
killed the pig that devoured her corn, Bacchus the goat
that nibbled at the tendrils of the vine, and Jupiter the
ox that swallowed his sacred cakes ; and the animals
slain by deities were roasted and eaten by men. Another
tradition is, that roast meat originally smoked only on
the altars of the gods, and that the Priests lived on the
pretended sacrifices, until some lean and greedy heretic,

THE MATEEIALS FOE DININa. 151

having wickedly pilfered the sacred viands, so improved
under the diet, that his example was promptly followed,
and men took to animal food, in spite of the thunder of
gods and the anathemas of Priests. I need not say where
there is hetter authority than all these pretty tales for
man's suhduing to his use and service the beasts of the
earth, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea.

A rearer of cattle was, in the olden time, an aristocrat
in his way. The gods looked after his herds, and the
law gave its protection where Olympian divinity so often
proved worthless. Bubona sat the watchful goddess of
their fattening ; and it was she who blessed the cabbages
steeped in vinegar, the straw and wheat-bran, and the
bruised barley, wherewith the oxen were prepared for the
cattle-show or the market. In the latter, the office of
the Eoman Prefect fixed the selling price : the breeder
could neither ask more nor take less than according to
the official tariff. There was a singular custom at one
time ia Eome, which proves, however, that the seller had
a voice in declaring the value of his stock. Purchaser
and vendor simultaneously closed, and then suddenly
opened, one of their hands, or some of the fingers. If
the number of fingers on both sides was even, the vendor
obtained the price which he had previously asked for his
meat ; but if the number was uneven, the buyer received
the viands for the sum he had just before tendered. This
was as singular a custom as, and a more honest one
than, that adopted by the first Dutch settlers in America.
In their trading with the Indians a Dutchman's fist was
established as the standard of weight, with this under-
standing, that when a Dutchman was sellhig to an Indian
his fist weighed a pound, but that it should only be half
that weight when the Hollander was a purchaser!

The Koman markets were well supplied, and the pig seems
to have been the national favourite. The Emperors used

152 TABLE TEAIT3.

to distribute thousands of pounds of pork to the poor,
as on festive occasions we, less magnificently, divide
among the needy our time-honoured English roast beef.
There was even an edict against making sausages of any
thing hut pork, — an edict which is much needed in some
of our suburbs, where "pork sausages" are made of any
thing but pig ; — and, after all, they could not be made of
a dirtier animal. But the grave Romans strangely reve-
renced this unclean beast. PUny places him only one
degree below humanity; and certainly the porcine and
human stomachs are very much alike ! In the East, our
ancient friend was a Pariah, and his position among the
unclean was fixed by a Jewish doctor, who said, that if
ten measures of leprosy were flung into the world, nine
of them would naturally fall to the execrated pig. There
is no doubt that the eating of the flesh of the pig in hot
climates would bring on diseases in the human system
akin to leprosy ; and this fact may have tended to estabKsh
the unpopularity of the animal throughout the East, and
to account also for the prohibition. Galen, however, pre-
scribed it as good food for people who worked hard ; and
there are modem practitioners who maintain that it is
the most easily digested of all meats. It is certainly
more easy of digestion than that respectable impostor,
the boiled chicken, which used so cruelly to test, and
defy, the feeble powers of invalids.

Pigs were fatted, both in Greece and Rome, until they
had attained nearly the bulk of the elephant. These
fetched prices of the most " fancy" description ; and they
were served up whole, with an entire Noah's-ark collec-
tion of smaller animals inside, by way of stufiBng. A
clever cook could so dress this meat as to make it have
the flavour of any other viand; and the first culinary
artistes of the day prided themselves on the preparation
of a ragout composed of young pigs stifled before they

THE MATEEIALS EOE DINnTO. 153

were littered. The motlier would have had no difficulty
in performing this feat herself for her own young, if sows
generally had been as huge as the one mentioned by
Varro, and which he says was so fat as to be incapable of
movement, and to be unconscious that a mouse, with a
young family, had settled in the folds of her fat, where
they lived like mites in cheese.

In another page, I have spoken of what were called " the
sacred pigs and lambs." Menaechmus, in Plautus, asks
the price of the "porci sacres, sinceri." " Sacres" was
applied to all animals intended for immolation. The
sinceri porci were the white and spotless pigs offered to
the Lares on behalf of the insane. The merchant who
gives instruction, in the Pseudolus, to his servant, as to
the splendid repast that is to be served up on his birthday,
is very particular on the subject of pork ; and he shows
us what parts formed a dish that might tempt princes, —
the ham, and the head : " Pernam, callum, glandium,
sumen,facito in agud jaceant"

If men were not, anciently, fonder of beef than of pork,
the reason, perhaps, was, that the ox was religiously
reverenced, because of his use to man, whereas the pig
was really of no value at all but for consumption. The
excellence of the ox as food was, nevertheless, very early
ascertained, and acted on by some primitive people.
The Jews were permitted to eat of that of which Abra-
ham had offered a portion to angels ; and calf and ox
were ahke an enjoined food. The Greeks, too, devoured
both with much complacency, as they also did tripe,
which was deemed a dainty fit for heroes. Indeed, for
tripe there was an ancient and long-standing propensity
among the early nations. It formed the chief dish at
the banquets of men who met to celebrate the victory of
mortals and gods over the sacrilegious Titans.

The lamb and the kid have smoked upon divine altars

154 TABLE TEAITS.

and humble tables. The Greeks were especially fond of
both, and the Romans were like them in this respect ;
but the Egyptians religiously abstained from the kid;
and more than one Eastern nation held, as of faith, that
the lamb was more fitting as an offering to the gods than
as a dish for men. On the other hand, there were people
who preferred the flesh of the ass, which was not an
uncommon dish at Eoman tables, where dogs, too, were
served as a dainty; for Hippocrates had recommended
them as a refined food; and the Greeks swallowed the
diet thus authoritatively described. The Romans, how-
ever, are said to have eaten the dog out of vengeance.
The curs of the Capitol were sleeping, when the sacred
and watchful geese saved it by their cackling; and
thence arose, it is believed, the avenging appetite with
which puppies, dressed like hares, were tossed into the
stomachs of the unforgiving Romans. They were also
sacrificed to the Dog-star.

It is worthy of remark, that Mexico was partly con-
quered by aid of the pig. Cortez was in need of supplies
of fresh meat on his march, and he took with him a large
herd of swine, — sows as well as pigs, — "these animals
being very suitable for a long journey, on account of
their endurance of fatigue, and because they multiply
greatly." The Indians, on most occasions, however,
appear to have been able to have supplied him plenti-
fully: for we read, that at Campeche, for instance, in
return for his presents, they placed before him partridges,
turtle-doves, goslings, cocks, hares, stags, and other ani-
mals which were good to eat, and bread made from Indian
corn, and fruits. It was, for all the world, like meeting
a burglar at your dining-room door, and asking him to
stay and take breakfast, before he went off with the
plate !

When the uncle of Job entertained his heavenly

THE MATEEIAX3 TOB DINING. 155

visitors, the disli he placed hefore them was "roasted
veal," of a freshly killed calf. It was tender, because the
muscular fibres had not had time to become stiff; and
its pleasant accompaniments were melted butter, milk,
and meal-cakes. Veal is the national dish of Germany,
where mutton is scarce, and calves abundant. It is poor
food at any time ; but the German veal is the most taste-
less of meats. There, indeed, is applicable the smart say-
ing of that ardent young experimentalist, who declared
that eating, veal was as insipid an enjoyment as kissing
one's sister ! Cardinal Zinzendorf used to denounce pork
quite as strongly. He deemed pigs to have been of no
use but for their blood, of which he himself used to make
a bath for his legs, whenever he had the gout. Quixote
Bowles, on the other hand, held pig, in any form, to be
the diviuest of meats, and the animal the happiest of all
created things. With true Apician fervour, he would
travel any distance to feast on the sight of a fatted
porker ; and a view of that prize pig of Prince Albert's,
which was so uniformly huge that, at first sight, it was
difficult to distinguish the head from the tail, would have
made him swoon with gentle ecstasy. Bowles was an
epicure in bacon ; and, whenever he went out to dinner,
he took a piece of it, of his own curing, in his pocket, and
requested the cook to dress it. The people of the
Society Islands carry respect for pigs even beyond the
compass of Bowles. They believe that there is a distinct
heaven for the porcine souls ; and this paradise of pigs
is called by them "Ofatuna." The Polynesian pig is
certainly a more highly favoured animal than his cousin
in Ireland; for, in a Polynesian farm household, every
pig has his proper name, as regularly as every member of
the family. Perhaps, the strangest cross of pigs ever
heard of, was that of Mr. Tinney's famous breed for
porkers, — Chinese, crossed by a half- African boar: the

156 TABID TEAIT3.

meat was said to, be delicious. Tinally, with, respect to
pigs, they are connected with a popular expletive, with
which they have, in reality, nothing to do. " Please the
pigs!" is shown, I think by Southey in his " Espriella,"
to be a corruption of "Please the pyx!" The pyx is
the receptacle which contains the consecrated wafer on
Eomish altars ; and the exclamation is equal to " Please
God!" The corruption is as curious a one as that of
"tawdry," from " 't Audrey," or St. Audrey's fair,
famous for the sale of frippery, — showy, cheap, and
worthless.

They who are half as partictdar about mutton as
Quixote Bowles was about pork, would do well to remem-
ber, that sheep continue improving as long as their teeth
remain sound, which is usually six years ; and that, at all
events up to this time, the older the mutton, the finer
the flavour. A spayed ewe, kept five years before she is
fattened, is superior to any wether mutton. Dr. Paris,
however, states that wedder mutton is in perfection at
five years old, and ewe mutton at two years old ; but he
acknowledges that the older is the more digestible. It
is the glory of one locality, famous for its sheep, that the
rot was never known to be caught upon the South Downs.
It is further said, that a marsh, occasionally overflowed
with salt water, was never known to rot sheep. A curi-
ous fact is stated by Young, in his " Survey of Sussex ;"
namely, that Lord Egremont had, ia his park, three large
flocks of the Hereford, South-Down, and Dishley breeds ;
and that these three flocks kept themselves perfectly dis-
tinct, although each had as much opportunity of mixing
with the others as they had with themselves.

I have alluded, in another page, to a circumstance first
noticed, I believe, by Madame Dacier, — ^that there is no
mention of boiled meat, as food, throughout Homer's
Iliad. The fair commentator is right; but "boiling" is,

THE MATEEIAIS FOE DINHTa. 157

nevertheless, used by the poet as a simile. When (in
the twenty-first hook) Neptune apphes his flames to
check the sweUing fury of Scamander, —

" The tubbliug waters yield a hissing sound.
As when the flames beneath a caldron rise.
To melt the fat of some rich sacrifice.
Amid the fierce embrace of circling fires
The waters foam, the heavy smoke aspires :
So boils th' imprison'd flood, forbid to flow.
And, choked with vapours, feels his bottom glow ! "

This is not a very elegant version of the original, it
must he confessed, albeit the translation is Pope's. It
is, however, the only reference to boiling to he' found in
Homer, aud here the fat of the sacrifice boiled down is
that of a pig.

I do not know that I can take leave of mutton and the
meats by doing them greater honour than by mentioning
that Napoleon ate hastily of mutton before he entered on
the contest at Leipsic, and he lost the triumph of the
bloody day through a fit of indigestion.

Before the era of kitchen gardens, scurvy was one of
the processes by which the English population wafe kept
down. Cabbages were not known here until the period
of Henry VIII. ; and turnips are so comparatively new to
some parts of England, that their introduction into the
northern counties is hardly a century old. A diet exclu-
sively of animal food is too highly stimulant for such a
climate as ours ; and an exclusively vegetable diet is far
less injurious in its effects. No meat is so digestible as
tender mutton. It has just that degree of consistency
which the stomach reqmres. Beef is not less nutritious,
but it is rather less easy of digestion, than mutton : much,
however, depends upon the cooking, which process may,

158 TABIiE TEAITS.

really not inaptly, be called the first stage of digestion.
The comparative indigestibiUty of lamb and veal arises
from tbe meat being of a more stringy and indivisible
nature. Old laws ordained that butchers should expose
no beef for sale, but of an animal that had been baited.
The nature of the death rendered the flesh more tender.
A coursed hare is thus more delicious eating than one that
r has been shot; and pigs whipped till they die, may be
eaten with relish, even by young ladies who pronounce
life intolerable. A little vinegar, administered to animals
about to be killed, is said, also, to render the flesh less
tough ; and it is not unusual to give a spoonful of this
acid to poultry, whose life is required for the immediate
benefit of the consumer. Some carnivorous animals have
been very expert at fornisliing their own larder. Thus
we read, that the eagles in Norway exhibit as much cun-
ning in procuring their beef as can well be imagined ; and
more, perhaps, than can well be beheved. They dive into
the sea, we are told, then roU in the sand, and afterwards
destroy an ox by shaking the sand in his eyes, while they
attack him. I think the French- eagle tried a similar
plan with the Enghsh buU, during the wars of the Empire,
and very ineffectually. It dived into the sea, and rolled
itself in the sand at Boulogne, and shook abundance of
it across the Channel ; but the English bull more quietly
shook it off again from his mane, and the eagle turned to
an easier quarry in Austria. Animals not carnivorous
have sometimes been as expert. There have been horses,
for instance, who have had their peculiar appetite also for
meat. Some twenty years ago, we heard of one at Brus-
sels, which, fond of flesh generally, was particularly so of
raw mutton, which it would greedily devour whenever it
could get, as it sometimes did, to a butcher's shop.

The Jews, it is said, never ate poultry under their old
dispensation ; and French gastronomists assert that this

THE MATEBIAIS FOE DININa. 159

species of food was expressly reserved to enricli the ban-
quets of a more deserving people. About the merits of
the people the poultry, and winged animals generally,
would perhaps have an opinion of their own, were they
capable of entertaining one ; for nowhere, as in Prance,
have those unfortunate races been so tortured, and merely
in order to extract out of their anguish a httle more
exquisite enjoyment for the palled appetites of epicures.
The ' tmiey has, perhaps, the least suffered at the hands
of the Gallic experimentalists, though he has not alto-
gether escaped. The goose has been the most cruelly
treated, especially in the case of his being kept caged
before a huge fire, and fed to repletion until he dies, the
Daniel Lambert of his species, of a diseased Uver, which
is the most delicious thing possible in a pie. But it is
ignoble treatment for the only bird which is said to be
prescient of approaching earthquakes. The goose saved
Rome, and was eaten in spite of his patriotism. He is
skilled in natural philosophy, and his science does not
save him from death and sage-and-onions. Nay, even a
female Sovereign of England could not hear of the defeat
of the Spanish Armada without decreeing " death to the
geese," until the time comes when Mr. Macaulay's Huron
friend shall be standing on a fragment of Blackfriars'
Bridge, sketching the ruins of St. Paul's.

It must be allowed, however, that the scientific ladies
of farm-yards have improved upon the knowledge of their
ancestresses. Formerly, of turkeys alone, full one-half
that pierced the shell perished; but now we rear more
than fifteen out of twenty. I do not know, however,
that that fact is at all consolatory to the turkey destined
to be dined upon.

Themistocles ordered his victory over Xerxes to be
yearly commemorated by a cock-fight ; and the bird itself
was eaten out of honour, as dogs in Rome were for rea-

IGO TABLE TEAITS.

sons of vengeance. At E,ome, th.e hen was the favourite
bu'd; but hens were consumed in such quantities, that
Pannius, the Consul, issued a decree, prohibiting their
being slain for food, during a certain period ; and, in the
mean time, the Komans "invented the capon." The
duck was devoured medicinally, that is, on medical assur-
ance that it was good diet for weak stomachs ; and there
were great sages who not only taught that duck, as a
food, would maintain men in health, but that, if they
were ill, the ample feeding thereon would soon restore
them again. Mithridates, it is alleged, ate it as a
counter-poison; other people, of other times and places,
simply because they liked it. The goose was in as much
favour as the duck with the digestion-gifted stomachs of
the older races. It was the royal diet in Egypt, where
the Monarch did not, like Queen Elizabeth, recommend
it to the people, but selfishly decreed that it was only to
be served at his own table. Gigantic geese, with ultra-
gigantic livers, were as much the delight of epicures in
Home, as the livers, if not the geese, are now the voVwp-
tas sv/prema of the epicure of France, and of coimtries
subject to the French code of diet. A Uver weighing as
much as the rest of the animal without it, was a moroeam,
in Rome, to make a philosopher's mouth water. This
was not proof of a more depraved taste than that exhi-
bited by a. Christian Queen of France, who spent sixteen
hundred francs in fattening three geese, the dehcate livers
of which alone Her Majesty intended to dine upon. The
pigeon and guinea-hen never attained to such popularity
as the goose and duck ; while the turkey, and especially
the truffled turkey-hen, has its value sufficiently pointed
out by the saying of the gastronome, that there must be
two at the eating of a truffled turkey, — ^the eater and the
turkey! The turkey, originally from the East, was
slowly propagated in Europe, and the breed appears to

THE MATEEIAI/8 FOEDDflNG. 161

have gradually passed away, like the bustard in England.
It was brought hither again from America, and its first
re-appearance is said to have been at the wedding-dinner
of Chajles IX. of Prance.

The turkey was not protected, as the peacock was by
Alexander, by a decree denoimcing death against whom-
soever should kill this divine bird, with its devilish note.
The decree did not affect Quintus Hortensius, who had
one served up at the dinner which celebrated his acces-
sion to the ofSce of Augur. Tiberius, however, preserved
the peacock with great jealousy, and it was only rich
breeders that could exhibit this bird at their banquets.

A man who passes thi-ough Essex may see whole
" herds " of geese and ducks in the fields there, fattening
without thought of the future, and supremely happy in
their want of reflection. These birds are "foreigners;"
at least, nearly aU of them are so. They are Irish by
birth, but they are brought over by steam, in order to be
perfected by an English education; and when the due
state of perfection has been attained, they are, like many
other joxmg people partaking of the "duck" or the
" goose," transferred to London, and " done for."

Some gastronomic enthusiasts, unable to wait for their
favourite birds, have gone in search of them. This was the
case with the oily Jesuit, Fabi, who so loved beccaficoes. "As
soon as the cry of the bird was heard in the fields around
BeUey," says the author of the " Physiologie du Gout"
" the general cry was, ' The beccaficoes are come, we shall
soon have Father Fabi among us.' And never did he
fail to arrive, with a friend, on the 1st of September.
They came for the express purpose of regaling them-
selves on beccaficoes, during the period of the passage of
the bird across the district. To every house they were
invited in town, and they took their departure again
about the 23rd." This good Father died in our " glorious

M

162 TABIE TEAITS.

memory " year of 1688 ; and one of his choice bits of
delirium was, that he had discovered the circulation of

the blood before Harvey !

And now do I not hear that gentleman-like person at
the lower end of the table remark, that the circulation of
the blood was a conceived idea long before Harvey?
You are quite right, my dear Sir ; and your remark is a,
very appropriate one, both as to time and theme, for the
circulation of the blood is one of the results of cooking.
As for preconception of the idea, it is sufficient for Har-
vey, that he demonstrated the fact. The Doctors of
ancient Eoman days supposed that the blood came from
the liver; and that, in passing through the vena cava
and its branches, a considerable quantity of it turned
about, and entered into the right cavity of the heart.
What Harvey demonstrated was, that the blood flows
from the heart into all parts of the body, by the arteries,
from whence it is brought back to the heart again, by the
veins. Well, Sir, I know what you are about to remark,
— ^that Paolo Sarpi, that pleasantest of table-companions,
claimed to have made the demonstration before Harvey.
True, Sarpi used to say, that he did not dare publish his
discovery, for dread of the Inquisition ; but that he con-
fided it to brother Pabi da Aqua-pendente, who kept it
close for the sa,me reason, but told it in confidence to
Harvey, who published it as his own. Well, Sir, Sir
George Ent exploded all that, by proving that Sarpi him-

I self had first learned the fact from Harvey's lips. The
Italians have the same right in this case, as they have to
their boast of having produced what old Eitson used to
style, " that thing you choose to call a poem, ' Paradise
Lost.' " It was an invention or discovery at second-hand.
What conceits Cowley has in his verses on Harvey!
He makes the phUbsophical Doctor pursue coy Nature
through sap, and catch her at last in the human blood.

THE MATEEIAIS POB DUnDTG. 163

He speaks, too, of tlie heart beating tuneful marches to
its vital heat ; a conceit which Longfellow twisted into
prettiness, when he said, that our " muffled hearts were
beating funeral marches to the grave." Tou will remem-
ber, Sir, that Shakspeare makes Brutus say, that Portia
was to him " dear as the drops that visit this sad heart."
Brutus himself would, perhaps, have said "liver;" and,
by the way, how very much to the same tune is the line
in Gray's "Bard," wherein we find, —

" Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes."

But there is in tuneful Edmund, in our ever-glorious
friend Spenser, a stanza which contains something that
may pass for the circulation theory. You remember, in
the first canto of the Second Book, where the bleeding
lady is found by the good Sir Guyon : —

" Out of her gored wouud the crael steel

He lightly snatch'd, and did the flood-gates stop
With his faire garment ; then 'gan softly feel

Her feeble pulse, to prove if any drop

Of living hlood yet in her veynes did hop ;
Which vrhen he felt to move, he hoped faire

To call baxjk life to her forsaken shop.
So well he did her deadly wounds repaire^
That at the last shee °gan to breathe out living aire."

And now, Sir, I shall be happy to take a glass of wine
with you, obsolete as that once honoured custom has
become. And allow me to send you a slice of this
venison. A little more of the fat ? Certainly ; but, if
you idU take currant jeUy with it, the sin be upon your
own head. It has always been the approved plan, you
say. Ah, my dear Sir! think what the approved plan
was, for years, in the treatment of small-pox. That was
not a gastronomic matter, you say ? I am not so sure
of that ; for the patient, swathed in scarlet cloth, had to
drink mulled port wine. But, on a question of diet, time
M 2

164l TAEIE TEAITS,

and numbers, yon think, may be taken- for authority.
Alas, my dear Sir! did you ever try the once popular
receipt of Apicius for a thick sauce to roasted chicken ?
Never ! of course you have not ; for, in such case, your
young widow would abeady have touched that pretty
life-assurance we wot of. English tastes, you urge ?
Ah ! in that ease, if old rule be good rule, you must camp
in Kensington Gardens, and eat acorns. In Germany,
where venison is a national dish, the idea of currant jeUy
would ruin the digestion of a whole company. But I see
you are incorrigible, and William is at your elbow with
the doubtful sauce.

Galen could not appreciate venison as the early Patri-
archs and the Jewish people did, and as the Eoman ladies
did, who ate of it as a preserver of youth, as well as a
lengthener of life. A roebuck of Melos would have
brought tears of dehght into the eyes of Diogenes. The
deer was preferred to the roebuck at Eome ; but the wild
boar was also a favourite ; and the Sicilian slave, cMJ
to' Servilius EuUus, cooked not less than three of differ-
ent sizes in one. The largest had baskets of dates sus-
pended to its tusks, and a litter of young ones in pastry
lying in the same dish. Within the first was a second,
within the second a third, and within the third some
small birds. Cicero, who was the guest for whom the
dinner was got up, was as dehghted with the culinary
slave, as LucuUus had been a few days before, when he
had eaten a dish of sows' paps prepared by the same
artist ; and the enraptured gastronome thought that all
Olympus was dissolving in his mouth !

A wild boar was at marriage feasts what our wedding
cakes are at those dreadful destroyers of time and diges-
tion,— ^wedding breakfasts, — an indispensable accompani-
ment. Caranus, the Macedonian, has the reputation of
having exceeded all others in his nuptial magnificence ;

THE MATEEIALS TOE DINING. 165

for, instead of one boar at his banquet, he had twenty.
But I have seen more than that at many a breakfast in
Britain.

The ancient Britons abstained from the hare, like the
Jews. Hippocrates held that, as a food, it thickened the
blood, and kept people from sleep ; but Galen — and such
instances among the faculty are not imcommon — differed
from his professional brother. People followed the
advice of Galen ; and though few, like Alexander Severus,
could eat a whole hare at every repast, yet many ate as
plentifully as they well could, accounting such diet
profitable both to health and good looks.

Hares were nearly as injuriously abundant in Greece as
rabbits were in Spain, where the latter animals are said
to have once • destroyed Tarragona, by undermining it in
burrowing ! Nay, more : the Balearic Isles were so over-
run with them, that the inhabitants, afraid of being
devoured, sent an embassy to Kome ; and Augustus
dispatched a military force, which not only slaughtered
the enemy, but ate the half of them ! The more refined
gluttons of Eome did not dine on the rabbit after this
fashion. They only picked a Httle of the young taken
alive from the slaughtered mother, or killed soon after
birth. They were preferable to the rabbits of the
Parisian gargottes, where fricassee de Iwpins is invariably
made of cats. And these, perhaps, are as dainty eating
as the hunch of the camel, or the feet of the elephant, —
pettitoes for Brobdignagian lovers to sup upon.

But we almost as viUanously disguise our poultry.
The latter, if not now, used — according to Darwin — ^to be
fed for the London market, by mixing gin, and even
opium, with their food, and keeping them in the dark ;
but " they must be killed as soon as they are fattened,
or they become weak and emaciated, like human
drunkards,"

166 TASIE TEAITS.

Game was almost as sacred to the Egyptian Priests, as
eggs to the sacerdotal gentlemen of some of the modem
tribes of Africa. Under the head of "game," we no
longer admit the birds which, according to Belon,
figm-ed at the gastronomic tables of France in the
sixteenth century. These were the crane, the crow, and
the cormorant, the heron, the swan, the stork, and the
bittern. The last-named bird was ia high estimation,
although the taste for it was confessedly an " acquired "
one. The larger birds of prey were not then altogether
despised by epicures, some of whom could sit down with
an appetite to roast vulture, whUe they turned with
loathing from the plump pheasant.

This eastern bird, however, has, with this exception,
enjoyed a deserved reputation from the earliest ages.
The Egyptian Kings kept large numbers of them to
grace their aviaries and their triumphs. The Greeks
reared them for the less sentimental gratification of the
stomach ; and a simple Athenian republican, when giving
a banquet, prided himself on having on his board as many
pheasants as there were guests invited.

Pheasants' brains were among the ingredients of the
dish that ViteUius invented, and which he designated by
the name of "Shield of Minerva." They were greedily eaten
by many" other of the Csesars ; and an offering of them to
the statue of Caligula was deemed to be propitiatory
of that very equivocal deity. The Emperors generally
esteemed them above partridges, which were trained for
fighting, as well as fattened for eating. Eoman epicures
fixed on the breast as the most " eatable " portion of the
gallant bird. The Greeks thought of it as we do of the
woodcock ; and with them the leg of the partridge was
the part the most highly esteemed. At a Greek table
would not have occurred the smart dialogue which is said
to have taken place at an English dinner. " Shall I send

THE MATEEIALS FOE BmiirG. 167

you a leg or a wing?" said a carver to a guest he was
about to help. " It is a matter of perfect indifference to
me," was the reply; and it is not a courteous one. "It
is a matter of equal indifference to me," said the first
speaker, at the same time resuming his own knife and
fork, and going on with his dinner.

Quails are variously said either to have recalled Hercules
to life, or to have cured him of epilepsy. The Romans,
however, rather feared them, as tending to cause epileptic
fits. Galen thought so ; Aristotle took a different view,
and the Greeks devoured them as readily as though they
had Aristotle's especial authorization ; and the Romans
were only slowly converted to the same way of thinking.
Quails, like partridges and the game-cock, were long reared
for the arena ; and legislators thought that youth might
learn courage from contemplating the contests of quails !

The thrush was perhaps the most popular bird at deli-
cate tables in Greece. They were kept from the young,
lest the taste should give birth to permanent greediness ;
but when a girl married, she was sure of a brace of
thrushes, for her especial eating at the wedding-feast.
They were still more popular in Rome, where patrician
ladies reared thousands yearly for the market, and made
a further profit by selling the manure for the land. The
thrush aviary of Varro's aunt was one of the sights of
Rome, where men ruined themselves in procuring dishes
composed of these birds for their guests. Greatly, how-
ever, as they abounded, there was occasionally a scarcity
of them ; for when the physician of Pompey prescribed a
thrush, by way of exciting the wayward stomach of the
wayward soldier to enjoyment, there was not one to be
found for sale in all Rome. Lucullus, indeed, had scores
of them ; but Pompey, like many other obstinate people,
chose rather to suffer than put himseb' under an obliga-
tion ; and he contrived to get well on other diet.

168 TABLE TEAITS.

The diet was, neverfclieless, held to be exceedingly
strengthening; and hlackbirds, also, were prescribed as
fitting food for weak digestions. It was perhaps for this
reason that the celebrated

"Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie,"

were the dainty dish set before the legendary and, pre-
sumedly, dyspeptic King ! In later times, we have had
as fooHsh ideas connected with them. The oil in which
they were cooked was said to be good for sciatica, or hip-
gout ; and VieUlot says that freckles might be instantane-
ously removed from the skin, if but ladies would

never try what VieiUot recommends.

The blackbird was not imperially patronized. The
stomachs of the gastronomic Caesars gave more greedy
welcome to the flamingo. Caligula, ViteUius, and Helio-
gabalus ruined their digestions by ragouts of this bird,
the tongues of which were converted into a stimulating
sauce. Dampier ate the bird, when he could get nothing
else; and thought the Caesars fools for doing so when
they could get any thing beside. The ancients, whether
Greeks or Romans, showed more taste in eating becca-
fieoes,— that deUcate little bird, all tender and succulent,
the essence of the juice of the fruits (especially the fig)
on which it feeds. The only thing to be compared with
it is the ortolan. Had HeHogabalus confined him-
self to these more savoury birds, instead of acquiring
indigestion on ostrich brains and flamingoes, his name
would have held a more respectable place in the annals of
gastronomy. But master and people were alike barbarous
in many of their tastes. Who now would think of killing
turtle-doves for the sake of eating their legs " devilled ? "
And yet we eat the lark, that herald of the skies, and
earliest chorister of the morn. "We eat this ethereal bird
with as little compunction as we do the savoury, yet

A LIGHT DINNEE FOE TWO. 169

unclean, of the earth, earthy, duck. And this thought
reminds me of a story, for which I am indebted to a
friend, himself the most amiable of Amphitryons, the
good things at whose table have ever wit, wisdom, mirth,
and good-fellowship attendant, as aids to digestion.*

A LIGHT DESTNEE FOE TWO.

Mant years ago, when railways were things undreamt
of, and when the journeys from Oxford to the metropolis
were inevitably performed on that goodly and pleasant
high road which is now dreary and forlorn, a gentleman
and his son, the latter newly flushed with College fame
and University honours, rode forth over Magdalen Bridge
and the Cherwell, purposing to reach London in a leisurely
ride. A groom, their only attendant, carrying their
scanty baggage with him on a good stout cob, had been
sent on in advance to order dinner at a weU-known road-
side hostelry, where Oxford nags baited, and where their
more adventurous riders frequently caroused, out of reach
of any supervision by Principals or Pro-Proctors.

Pleasant is the spot, well approved by past generations
of Freshmen, picturesque and charming to an eye content
with rich fields, luxuriant meadows, and pretty streams,
tributaries of the now adolescent Thames, whose waters
had not at that date been polluted by barge or lighter at
that point of its course. The neighbourhood is famous
for its pliunp larks ; and whether in a savoury pudding,
swimming with beef-steak gravy, or roasted, a round half-
dozen together, on an iron skewer or a tiny spit, those
little warblers famished forth a pretty adjunct on a well-
spread table, tempting to an appetite somewhat appeased
by heavier and more substantial viands. Mine host at
our road-side quarters had a cook who dressed them to a
nicety; contriving to produce or develope a succulency
* Henry Holden Prankum, Esq.

170 TABLE TEAITS.

and .flavonr which meaner practitioners would scarcely
have deemed practicable. Now Martin, pursuant to his
master's instructions for securing a repast of ducks and
the dainty lark, finding the landlord brought out from his
shady porch by the clatter of the horse's hoofs on the
weU-beaten road, announced the approaching arrival, and
ordered dinner. " My master wishes to find a couple of
larks, and a dozen of ducks, well roasted, on his arrival at
four o'clock." "Did I understand you rightly, young
man?" said Boniface. "0!" said the varlet, pettishly,
" in Oxford no landlord needs twice telling ;" — and betook
himself to the stables, looking forward to the enjoyment
of a tankard of good house-brewed ale, — ^ho brewer's ini-
quitous mixture, — and the opportunity of shining with
some lustre in the tap, or the kitchen, before country
bumpkins, eager to listen to a man like himself, who had
seen racing at Newmarket and Doncaster, and high life
at Bath and Cheltenham. Meantime, his masters came
leisurely along the road, nor thought of applying a spur,
until the craving bowels of the younger horseman, whose
digestive organs were imimpaired by College theses and
examinations, suggested a lack of provender ; and, their
watches, when consulted, indicating the near approach of
the dinner hour, they broke off their chat, and soon drew
rein at their place of temporary sojourn. '

Finding the cloth laid, and the busy waiter's prepara-
tions nearly complete, they glanced with satisfaction at a
table of somewhat unnecessary dimensions, considering
the limited extent of the party, which our young
Hellenist would have described as a " duality." Just as
our travellers were growing impatient, the landlord, hav-
ing previously satisfied himself, by obsequious inquiry,
that his guests were quite ready, re-entered, bearing a
dish with bright cover, and heading as good a procession
of domestics, each similarly laden, as the limited resources

A LIGHT BINNEB TOE TWO. 171

of his modest establishment admitted. The large number
of dishes rather surprised the elder of the twain, whose
miud was less absorbed by the suggestions of appetite ;
and, having dispatched the sole attendant left for a
bottle of the best Madeira the cellar could supply, and a
jug of that malt Hquor for which the house had obtaiaed
some notoriety, he proceeded to look under the formidable
range of covers. Seeing under the first a couple of ducks,
he said, " Come, this is all right ! " but finding the next,
and the next, and stiU the next, but a repetition of the
same, either with or without the odour of seasoning, he
fairly stood aghast, when six couple of goodly ducks stood
revealed before him. The yoimg coUegian's mirth was
great, his laugh hearty, at the climax of two pretty little
chubby larks which closed the liae of dishes. Apple
sauce and gravy, broccoli and potatoes, stood sentries,
flanking the array. Upon his ringing the bell with no gen-
tle hand, the landlord himself stepped in from the passage,
where he appeared to have awaited a summons ; and, in
answer to a question the reader may easily anticipate,
replied that the servant's order was precise, and that it
was impatiently repeated upon his own hesitation in
accepting it. The respectabiUty of the landlord, and the
evident truthfulness of his manner, stayed all further
questions. But the elder gentleman said firmly, that he
should not pay for what had been so absurdly provided ;
alleging, that no two, or even three, persons could be
found who would do justice to such provisions. The
landlord, like Othello, "upon that hint spake;" for he
saw a faint chance of righting a somewhat difficiilt mat-
ter. " 0, Sir," said he, " I think I could find a man hard
by, who would not consider the supplies too much for his
own appetite." "Produce him," said the guest, "and
settle the point ; for, if you do, I will pay for the whole."
The anxious landlord said no more ; but, bowing, left in

172 TABLE TBAITS.

searoli of a neighbouring cobbler, whose prowess with the
knife and fork was pre-eminent in the vicinity. Meantime,
our hungry travellers sat down to dinner with such good
will, that each of them disposed of one of the regiment ;
and, in a joint attack, a third fell mutilated, leaving but
fragmentary reKcs. A lark arpiece was a mere practical
joke ; and cheese, with celery, left nothing farther wanting
to appease those cravings which had prompted them to
action. While these httle matters were in progress, the
landlord had found the shoemaker, and told his story.
" Well," said Lapstone, " this is plaguy unlucky, for I 've
just had a gallon of broth ! Such a famous chance, too ;
for if there is any thing I am particularly fond of, cer-
tainly ducks is a weak point. Sir." Boniface, thinking it
his only chance, urged him to try ; and the man of bris-
tles, nothing loth, consented. On being duly introduced,
orders were given for setting-to on the spot, to insure
fair play, and defeat any supplementary aid, or a deposit
in any other pocket, save that with which the savage in
a nude state finds himself provided, — the stomach. While
the travellers sipped their wine, and trifled with their
dessert, the voracious cobbler fell heartily to work on the
row of eight ducks before him: one having been sent
down for the undeserving groom, whose blunder had
proved a godsend to the man of leather. Wisely eschew-
ing vegetables, and eating scantUy of bread, the disjecta
membra of the doomed ducks rapidly yielded up their
savoury iateguments. But flesh is weak, and cobblers'
appetites are not whoUy unappeasable ; so that while the
fifth victim was under discussion, a stimiilant, in the
shape of " a little brandy," was requested ; and when the
sixth was but slowly and more slowly disappearing, poor
Lapstone, who began to think farther progress impossible,
was seen whispering to the landlord. The gentleman
loudly demanded what the fellow was saying. "Sir,"

THE MATEEIAIiS EOB DININff. 173

said the landlord, promptly and ctmningly, " he says, he
wishes there were half-a-dozen more ; for he is just begia-
ning to enjoy them." " Confound the rascal's gluttony,"
cried the travellers ; "not a bit more shall he have. Put
the remaining couple by for our supper ; for we shall not
leave your house tdU to-morrow:" — an arrangement
affording much relief to the shoemaker, and entire satis-
faction to the umkeeper.

To return to the lark. It is worthy of notice, that
London is annually supplied, from the country about
Dunstable alone, with not less than four thousand dozen
of these succulent songsters. At Leipsic, the excise on
larks, for that single city, amounts to nearly £1,000 ster-
ling yearly. The larks of Dunstable and Leipsic are, I
presume, "caught napping." They are not, then, like
the nightingale, who is said to sing all night, to keep
herself awake, lest the slow-worm should devour her.

And this reminds me of a remark which I once heard
made by one who disputed the fact, that every thing had
its use. Mr. Jordan could not conjecture what use there
could be in the cimex, that domestic "B flat," which
may be found in old beds and old parchments. So my
friend could not divine the utility of a slow-worm, or of
that unclean parasite, the "louse," which, by the way,
infects birds as weU as dirtjt humanity, and even reaches
these same aspiring larks. For the use of the slow-worm
-I referred him to natural history ; for that of the pedicti-
hts, I coidd only state that it is swallowed by some
country-people as a cure for jaundice ! At Hardenberg,
in Sweden, it held a position of some importance. When
a Burgomaster had to be chosen, the eligible candidates
sat with their beards upon the table, in the centre of
which was placed a louse ; and the one in whose beard he
took cover was the Magistrate for the ensuing year.

174 TABLE TEAITS.

After the ceremony, the company supped upon ducks,
and sang like larks.

The household of Job was of a hospitable cast. " His
sons went and feasted in their houses, every one on his
day;" (which is explained as being the J«>fA-day ;) "and
sent and called for their three sisters to eat and drink
with them." We know what materials the joyous family
had to make a superb feast ; and doubtless he who pre-
sided thereat was as proud as the Knight who, by virtue
of triumphing in the tournament, alone had the right to
carve the peacock which was placed before him — plumage,
tail, and all — ^by the fairest "she" to be found in the
vicinity. After all, the peacock was inferior to the suc-
culent and sweet-throated thrush. The proper time for
eating thrushes, and, indeed, much other of the small
game of the bird species, is towards the end of November.
The reason assigned by a French epicure is, that, after
they have been fattened in the fields and vineyards, they
then give a biting, bitter aroma to their flesh by feeding
on juniper-berries. The Eomans fed them on a paste
made up of figs, wheat, and aromatic grains. The Eoman
epicures were as fond of them as the Marquis de Cussy
was of red partridges, one of which he ate on the day of
his death, and after a six months' illness. It was his last
act ; and, in gastronomic annals, it is recorded, as Nel-
son's calling for seaUng-waXj^mid the thunders of Copen-
hagen, or his writing to Horatia before he went to meet
death at Trafalgar, is noticed by the biographers of our
naval heroes. Statistics, which are as pleasantly void of
truth as poetry, generally speaking, set down the enor-
mous total of nearly fifty-two millions of fi:ancs as the
■sum expended yearly in France for fowls of all species.
Taking the amount of population into consideration, this
would prove that France is a more fowl-consuming nation
than any other on the face of the globe.

THE MATEEIALS EOB DINING. 175

In a dietetic point of view, it would be well for weak
stomacbs to remember, that wild birds are more nutri-
tious than tbeir domesticated cousins, and more digesti-
ble. But tlie white breast or wing of a chicken is less
heating than the flesh of winged game. Other game —
such as venison, which is dark-coloured, and contains a
large proportion of iibrine — produces highly stimulating
chyle ; and, consequently, the digestion is an easy and
rapid affair for the stomach. But, though the whiter
meats be detained longer ia the stomach, furnish less
stimulating chyle, and be suffered to run into acetous fer-
mentation, their lesser stimulating quality may recom-
mend them when the general system is not in want of
a spur. Meats are wholesome, or otherwise, less with
reference to themselves than to the consumer. "To
assert a thing to be wholesome," says Van Swieten,
" without a knowledge of the condition of the person for
whom it is intended, is like a sailor pronouncing the wind
to be fair, without knowing to what port the vessel is
bound."

Cardinal Fesch would have made an exception in the
case of " blackbirds." His dinners at Lyons were reve-
renced for the excellence and variety of these dishes.
The birds were sent to him weekly from Corsica; and
they were said to incense half the archiepiscopal city.
They were served with great form ; and none who ate
thereof ever forgot the flavour which melted along his
palate. The Cardinal used to say that it was like swal-
lowing paradise, and that the smell alone of his blackbirds
was enough to revivify half the defunct in his diocese.

Quite as rich a dish may be found in the pheasant
which has been suspended by the tail, and which detaches
himseK from his caudine appendage, by way of intimation
that he is ready. It is thus, we are told, that a pheasant
hung up on Shrove Tuesday is susceptible of being spitted

176 TASIE TBAITS.

on Easter-day! It is popularly said in France of the
pheasant, that it only lacks something to be equal to the
turkey ! A wise saying, indeed ! but, the truth is, the
two cannot be compared. Our own popular adage regard-
ing the partridge and woodcock has far better grounds
for what they assert : —

If tie partridge had but tlie woodcock's tMgh,
'T wouid be the best bird that ever did fly.
If the woodcock had but the partridge's breast,
'T would be the best bird that ever was dress'd."

The partridge is much on the ground, the woodcock ever
on the wing ; and these parts, and the immediate vicinity
of them, acquire a muscular toughness, not admired by
epicures.

The vegetarians may boast of a descent as ancient as
that claimed by the Freemasons. In ancient days, if,
indeed, flesh meat was not denounced, unmeasured honour
was paid to vegetables. Monarchs exchanged them as
gifts, wise men and warriors supped on them after study
and battle, Chiefs of the noblest descent prepared them
with their own hands for their own tables, agricultural
chymists tended their planting, and pious populations
raised some of them to the rank of gods.

The Licinian Law enacted their use, while it restricted
the consumption of meat; and the greatest families in
Eome derived their names from them. Fabius was but
General Becm, Cicero was Vice-Chancellor Pea, and the
house of Lentulus took its appellation from the slow-
growing Lentil.

The kitchen-garden of Henry YIII. was worse supplied
than that of Charlemagne, who not only raised vegetables,
but, as Gustavus Vasa's Queen did with her eggs and
milk, made money by them. He was a royal market-
gardener, and found more profit in his salads than he did

THE MATEEIAI.S FOB DINUfG. 177

in his sons. A salad, by the way, was so scarce an article
during the early part of the last century, that George I.
was obliged to send to HoUand to procure a lettuce for
his Queen; and now lettuces are flung by cart-loads to
the pigs. Asparagus and artichokes were strangers to us
until a still later period.

The bean has, from remote times, held a distinguished
place. Isidorus asserts that it was the first food used by
man. Pythagoras held that human life was in it. By
others the black spot was accoimted typical of death ; and
the Flamen of Jupiter would neither look upon it nor
pronounce its name. The Priests of ApoUo, on the other
hand, banqueted on a dish of beans at one of the festivals
of their god. Those of iEsculapius taught that the smell
of beans in blossom was pr^udicial to health ; and far-
mers' wives, in the days of Baucis and Philemon, main-
tained that hens reared on beans would never lay eggs.

The "bean" was once the principal featitte in the
Twelfth-Night cake; and he to whose share fell the
piece containing the vegetable was King for the night.
The last Twelfth Night observed, with ancient strictness,
at the Tuileries, was when Louis XVIII. was yet reign-
ing. Among his guests was Louis Philippe, Duke of
Orleans, who was lucky enough to draw the bean, and
thereby became Monarch .for the nonce. " My cousia,"
said Louis XVIIL, "is King at last!" "I wiU never
accept such title," answered the over-modest Duke;
"I acknowledge no other King in France but your
Majesty, and will not usurp the name even in jest ! "
Excellent man! he was at that very moment intriguing
to tumble from his throne that very King, loyally for
whom he expressed with so much of unnecessary and
enforced ceremony.

The haricot Heme, or white kidney bean, deserves to be
introduced more generally into ourJdtchens. There are

s

178 TABLE TEAITS.

various methods of dressing them ; hut the best is to
have them softened ia the gravy of a leg of mutton ;
they are then a good substitute for potatoes. They are
nearly as good, dressed with oil or butter ; and Napoleon
was exceedingly fond of them, dressed as a salad. Of
course, we aUude here to the bean which, in fuU maturity,
is taken from the pod, and eaten in winter. In England
we eat the po'd itself, (in summer,) split, and served with
roast mutton and venison. The mature bean, however,
makes an excellent dish.

And, a-propos to Monarchs, it is to Alexander that
we are indebted for the Indian " haricot ;" and the vege-
table had a fashion in Greece and Rome worthy of its
distinguished introducer. But this fashion was not a
mere consequence; for grey peas were as universally
eaten. The people were so fond of these, that political
aspirants bought votes of electors in exchange for them.
They formed the principal refreshment of the lower citi-
zens at the circus and the theatre, where, instead of the
modem cry of " Oranges, biscuits, porter, and bill of the
play !" was to be heard that of " Peas ! peas ! ram peas !
grey peas ! and a programme of the beasts and actors !"

Green peas were not known in Prance until the middle
of the sixteenth century. They were grown, but people
no more thought of eating them than we do the sweet
pea. The gardener Michaux was born, and he it was
who first sent green peas to a Christian table.

When Alexander, son of Pyrrhus, wished to keep all
the beans that grew in the Thesprotian Marsh for his
own eating, the gods dried up the marsh, and beans
could never be made to grow there again. So, when
King Antigonus put a tax on the healing spring that
flowed at Edessa, the waters disappeared ; and the people
were not, in either case, benefited. "What lumbering
avengers were those heathen deities !

THE MATEEIAIS rOE DINING. 179

The cabbage has had a singular destiny, — ^ia one
country an object of worship ; in another, of contempt.
The Egyptians made of it a god ; and it was the first dish
they touched at their repasts. The Greeks and Eomans
took it as a remedy for the languor following inebriation.
Cato said that ia the cabbage was a panacea for the ills
of man. Erasistratus recommended it as a specific ia
paralysis ; Hippocrates accounted it a sovereign remedy,
boiled with salt, for the cohc; and Athenian medical
men prescribed it to young nursing-mothers, who wished
to see lusty babies lying in their arms. DiphUus pre-
ferred the beet to the cabbage, bpth as food and as medi-
cine,— ^in the latter case, as a vermifuge. The same phy-
sician extols mallows, not for fomentation, but as a good
edible vegetable, appeasing hunger and curing the sore-
throat at the same time. The asparagus, as we are
accustomed to see it, has derogated from its ancient mag-
nificence. The original "grass" was from twelve to
twenty feet high ; and a dish of them could only have
been served to the Brobdignagians. Under the Eomans,
stems of asparagus were raised of three pounds' weight, —
heavy enough to knock down a slave' in waiting with.
The Greeks ate them of more moderate dimensions, or
woidd have eat them, but that the publishing doctors of
their day denounced asparagus as injurious to the sight.
But then it was also said, that a slice or two of boiled
pumpkin would re-invigorate the sight which had been
deteriorated by asparagus. " Do that as quickly as you
should asparagus!" is a proverb descended to us from
Augustus, and illustrative of the mode in which the vege-
table was prepared for the table.

The gourd does not figure at our repasts as commonly

as it did in the east of Europe in mythological times,

when it was greedily eaten, boiled hot, or preserved in

pickle. The readers of Athenaeus wiU remember, how

s2

180 TAEIE TEAITS.

a party of philosophers lost their temper, m a disoussion
as to whether the gourd was round, square, or ohlong, —
how a coarse-minded doctor interrupted the discussion by
a very incongruous remark, — and how the venerable sage
who was in the chair called the rude man to oi-der, and
then bade the ^sputants proceed with their argument.

A still more favourite cdsh, at Athens, was turnips,
from Thebes. Carrots, too, formed a distinguished dish
at Greek and Eoman tables. Purslain was rather
honoured as a cure against poisons, whether in the blood
by wounds, or in the stomach from beverage. I have
heard it asserted in Erance, that if you briskly rub a
glass with fingers which have been previously rubbed
with purslain, or parsley, the glass will Certainly break.
I have tried the experiment, but only to find that the
glass resisted the pretended charm.

Broccoli was the favourite vegetable food of Drusus.
He ate greedily thereof; and, as his father, Tiberius, was
as fond off it as he, the master of the Eoman world and
his illustrious heir were constantly quarrelling, like two
clowns, when a dish of broccoli stood between them.
Artichokes grew less rapidly into aristocratic favour ; the
dictum of Gralen was against them ; and, for a long time,
they were only used by drinkers, against head-ache, and
by singers, to strengthen their voice. Pliny pronounced
artichokes excellent food for poor pebple and donkeys I
For nobler stomachs he preferred the cucumber, — ih&
Nemesis of vegetables. But people were at issue touch-
ing the merits of the cucumber. Not so, regarding the
lettuce, which has been universally honoured. It was
the most highly esteemed dish of the beautiful Adonis.
It was prescribed as provocative to sleep ; and it cured
Augustus of the malady which sits so heavily on the soul
of Leopold of Bel^um, — hypochondriasis. Science and
rank eulogized the lettuce, and philosophy sanctioned the

THE MATEEIiXS FOB BINIirO; 181

eulogy in the^ person of Aristoxenus, who not only grew
lettuces as the pride of his garden, hut irrigated them
with wine, ia order to increase their flavour.

But we must not place too much trust ia the stories
either of sages or apothecaries. These Pagans recom-
mended the seductive, hut iadigestihle, endive, as good
against the headache, and young onions and honey as
admirahle preservers of health, when taken fasting ; but
this was a prescription for rustic swains and nymphs, — the
higher classes, in town or country, would hardly venture
on it. And yet the mother of ApoUo ate raw leeks, and
loved them of gigantic dimensions. For this reason,
perhaps, was the leek accounted, not only as saluhrious, hut
as a heautifier. The love for melons was derived, in
similar fashion, probahly, from Tiberius, who cared for
them even more than he did for broccoli. The German
CsBsars inherited the taste of their Eoman predecessor,
carrying it, indeed, to excess ; for more than one of them,
as may be seen in another page, submitted to die after
eating melons, rather than live by renouncing them.

I have spoken of gigantic asparagus : the Jews had
radishes that could vie with them, if it be true that a fox
and cubs could burrow in the hollow of one, and that it
was not uncommon to grow them of a hundred poimds in
weight. It must have been such radishes as these that
were employed by seditious mobs of old, as weapons, in
insurrections. In such case, a rebellious people were always
well victualled, and had peculiar facilities, not only to beat
their adversaries, but to eat their own arms. The horse-
radish is, probably, a descendant of this gigantic ancestor.
It had, at one period, a gigantic reputation. Dipped in
poison, it rendered the draught innocuous, and, rubbed on
the hands, it made an encounter with venomed serpents
mere play. In short, it was celebrated as being a cure
for every evil in life, — the only exception being, that it

182 TABLE TEAITS.

destroyed the teeth. There was far more difference of
opinion touching garlic, than there was touching the
radish. The Egyptians deified it, as they did the leek
and the cahbage ; the Greeks devoted it to Gehenna, —
and to soldiers, sailors, and cocks that were not "game."
Medicinally, it was held to be useful in many diseases,
if the root used were originally sown when the moon
was below the horizon. No one who had eaten of it,
however, could presume to enter the Temple of Cybele.
Alphonso of Castile was as particular as this goddess;
and a Ejiight of Castile, " detected as being guilty of
garlic," sufiered banishment from the royal presence
during an entire month.

Parsley has fared better, both with gods and men.
Hercules and Anacreon crowned themselves with it. It
was worn both at joyous banquets and funeral feasts ;
and not only horses, but those who bestrode them, ate of
the herb, in order to find the excitement to daring which
otherwise lacked. In contrast with parsley stood the
water-cress, a plant honoured and eaten only by the Per-
sians. It was, indeed, medically esteemed as curative of
consumption, and, by placing it in the ears, of tooth-ache.
But the wits and Plutarch denounced its use in any
case ; and few cared to affect love for a plant which was
popularly declared to have the power of twisting the noses
of those who put it into their mouths !

Parsley was as popular in what may be called " classi-
cal" times, as the asparagus has invariably been with a
particular class in Prance. This vegetable has ever
been, I know not wherefore, a favourite vegetable with
the ofl&cials of the GalHcan Church. One day, Mon-
seigneur Cburtois de Quincy, Bishop of Belley, was
informed that an asparagus head had just pierced the soil
in His Eminence's kitchen-garden, and that it was worth
looking at. Cardinal and convives rose from table,

THE MATEEIALS TOE DUTITTG. 183

visited the spot, and were lost in admiration at what
they saw. Day hy day the Bishop watched the growth of
the delicious giant. His mouth watered as he looked
at it, and happy was he when the day arrived in which
he might with his own hands take it from the ground.
When he did so, he found, to his disappointment, that he
held a wooden counterfeit, admirably turned and painted
by the Canon Eosset, who was famous for his artistic
abilities, and also for his practical jokes. The joke on
this occasion was taken in good part, and the counterfeit
asparagus was admitted to the honour of lying on the
Bishop's table.

I have noticed, that asparagus has been suggested as
one of the substitutes for coffee. In this case, the seeds
are taken from the berries, by drying the latter in an
oven, and rubbing them on a sieve. When ground, the
seeds make a full-flavoured cofiee, not inferior, it is said,
— but that is doubtful, — to the best Mocha.

It was the opinion of PHny, that nature intended aspa-
ragus to grow wild, in order that all might eat thereof.
That was esteemed the best which grew naturally on the
mountain-sides. The famous Eavenna asparagus was
cultivated with such perfection, that three of them
weio'hed a pound. Lobster surrounded with asparagus was
a favourite dish ; and the rapidity with which the latter
should be cooked, is illustrated, as I have said, by a pro-
verb: " Veloeius quam asparagi coquuntv/r !" There is
a story told of an intrusive traveller forcing his company
at supper on another wayfarer, before whom were placed
an omelette and some asparagus. The intruder had not
before seen any "grass," and inquired what it was. " 0,
it is very well in its way," said the other, " and we wiU
divide both omelette and asparagus;" and therewith,
after carving the first, he cut the bunch in two, and gave
the white ends to the importunate visitor. The greatest

184 TABIB TKAITS.

indignation ever experienced by Careme, was once at
hearing that some guests had eaten asparagus with one
of his new entrentits, and mixed it in then- months with
iced champagne.

There is an opinion current in some parts of England,
that they who eat of old parsnips that have been long in
the ground invariably go mad ; and on this account the
root is called " mad-nip." On some such " insane root,"
it is said, the Indians, named by Garcilasso, whetted
their appetites before they ate their dead parents. Such
form of entombment was accounted most dignified and
dutiful. If the defunct was lean, the children boiled
their parent ; but obesity was always honoured by roast-
ing. Fathers ar^d mothers were religiously picked to the
very bones, and the bones themselves were then eon-
signed to the earth. This, however, is not an exclusively
Indian custom. The Indians only devoured their de-
ceased parents ; but I have seen, in Christian England, '
many a son devouring father and mother, too, during
their lives, swallowing their very substance^ and then,
like the Indians, committing their bones to the bosom of
a tender mother, — earth.

Perhaps there is nothing, in the vegetable way, more
insipid than parsnips; b«t these are sometimes as mis-
chievous as insipid persons. This is the case, if the
above-named tradition be worthy of credit, wherein we are
told, that old parsnips are called " mad-nips," and that
the maids who eat of them invariably become more like
Salmacis than the youth she wooed, and are as much
given to dancing as though they had been bitten by a
tarantula. I fear the " mad-nip " is too much eaten in
many of our rural districts, and perhaps by the acerbm
mrgo of metropolitan towns and episcopal cities also.
But let us look at our ancient friend, the potato.

It has been well said, that the first art in boiling a

THE MATEEIAIS FOE BININ&. 185

potato, is to prevent the boiling of the potato. " Upon
the heat and flame of the distemper sprinkle cool
patience;" for without patience, care, and attention, —
extreme vigilance being impUed by the latter, a potato
will never come out of the pot triumphantly well boiled.

The potato has been found iu an iadigenous state in
ChiU, on the mountains near Valparaiso and Mendoza;
also near Monte Video, Lima, Quito, in Santa Fe da
Bogota, and on the banks of the Orizaba, in Mexico.
Cobbett cursed the root as being that of the ruin of Ire-
laud, where it is said to have been first planted by
Ealeigh, on his estate at Toughal, near Cork. Its intro-
duction iato England is described as the effect of acci-
dent, in consequence of the wrecking of a vessel on the
coast of Lancashire, which had a quantity of this " fruit"
on board.

The common potato (solanum tuberosum) was probably
first brought to Spain from Quito by the Spaniards, in
the early part of the sixteenth century. In both of
those coimtries the tubers are known by the designation
oijiapas. In passing from Spain into Italy, it naturalized
itself under the name of " the truffle." In 1598, we hear
of its arrival at Vienna, and thence spreading over
Europe. It certainly was not known in North America
in 1586, the period at which llaleigh's colonists in Vir-
ginia are- said to have sent it to England ; axid in the
latter country it was not known until long after its
introduction, as noticed above, into Ireland. In Gerard's
Herbal (1597) the Batata Yi/rgmiana, as it is called, to
distinguish it from the Batata Edulis, or " sweet potato,"
is described ; and the author recommends the root, not
for common food, but as " a delicate dish." The sweet
potato was the "delicate dish" at English tables long
before the introduction of its honest cousin. We im-
ported it from Spain and the Canaries, and in very consi-
derable quantities. It enjoyed the reputation of possess-

186 TABLE TEAITS.

ing power to restore decayed vigour. This reputation
tas not escaped Shakspeare, who makes Falstaff exult-
ingly remark, in a fit of pleasant excitement, that " it
rains potatoes!" The Eoyal Society of England, ia
1663, urgently recommended the extensive cultivation of
the root as a resource against threatened famine ; hut as
late as the end of that century, a good hundred years
after its first introduction, the writers on gardening con-
tinued to treat its merits with a contemptuous indiffer-
ence ; though one of them does " damn with faint
praise," by remarking, that " they are much used in Ire-
land and America as bread, and may be propagated with
advantage to poor people." As late as 1719, the potato
was not deemed worthy of being named in the " Com-
plete Gardener " of Loudon and Wise, and it was not tiU
the middle of the last centmy that it became generally
used in Britain and North America. The " conserva-
tives of gulosity" of that day continued long to dispa-
ragingly describe it as " a root found in the New World,
consisting of little knobs, held together by strings: if
you boil it weU, it cam, be eaten ; it may become an arti-
cle of food ; it will certainly do for hogs ; and though it is
rather flatulent and acid in the human stomach, perhaps,
if you boil it with dates, it may serve to keep soul and
body together, among those who can find nothing better."
Some sixty years since, the Dutch introduced the
potato into Bengal. The produce was sold in Calcutta
at 5s. a pound. The English tried to raise them, and all
their plants grew like Jack's bean-stalk, but lacked its
strength. The Hollanders continually cut the swiftly-
growing plant, and so compelled it to produce its fruit
beneath the ground. The secret was as well worth
knowing as that other touching potatoes during frost.
The only precaution necessary is, to retain the potato in
a perfectly dark place, for some days after the thaw has
commenced. In America, where they are sometimes

THE MATEEIAIS FOB DIiniTG. 187

frozen as hard as stones, they rot if thawed in open day ;
but if thawed in darkness, they do not rot, and lose very
little of their natural odour and properties. So, at least,
they assert, who profess to have means of best knowing.
The potato is said to have been first planted, in England,
in the county of Lancashire, which was once as famous
for the plant as Lithuania is for beet-root. It is not
much more than a century siuce cabbages reached us
from Holland. They were first planted in Dorsetshire,
by the Ashleys ; and I may add here what I have omit-
ted in speaking of it in earher times, namely, that the
Athenians administered the juice of it iu cases of slow
parturition. Let me farther add, that such terms as
" cow-cabbage," " horse-radish," " buU-rush," and the
like, do not imply any connexion between the article and
the animal. The animal prefix is simply to signify
unusual size. The prefix was commonly so applied
by the ancients : hence the name of Alexander's charger ;
and a not less familiar illustration is afforded us in the
case of the "horse-leech." Cabbage used to have said of
it what Lemery, physician of Louis XIV., more truly said
of spinach ; namely, that " it stops coughing, allays the
shai-p humours of the breast, and keeps the body open."
Spinach, to be truly enjoyed, should never be eaten with-
out liberal saturation of gravy ; and French epicures say,
"Do not forget the nutmeg." This vegetable goes excel-
lently with swine's flesh in every shape, but especially
ham, the stimulating flavour of which it strongly modifies.
Eice, as an article of food, has something remarkable in
it. Its cultivation destroys life ; and when the grain is
eaten, its value as a supporter of strength is very imcer-
tain. The cultivation of this production, where it does
not destroy life, does destroy comfort, and slaves may be
compelled, but freemen will not go voluntarily, to raise
the "paddy crop." In India, where the people of many
districts depend upon it entirely as a chief article of food,

188 TABLE TEAITS.

famine is often the result, simply because the failure of
one crop leaves the unenergetic people without any other
present resource.

And now, by way of a concluding word to those who
read medicinally, I would say, on the best authority,
first, that of the haricot-bean I have nothing to add to
what I have already stated. With regard to peas, they
are, like many other things, most pleasant and wholesome
when young. Old, they are the fathers of gaseous cohc ;
and, when swallowed with the additional tenacity of tex-
ture derived from being made into pudding,— why, then
the imhappy consumer is a man to be pitied. Potatoes
are best baked, or roasted Hghtly. In the latter case,
they are scarcely less nutritious than bread; but the
potato must be in full health, and the cooking unexception-
able. There is many a cook who could execute, to a
charm, the fiiecmdecm invented by Leo X., who has not
the remotest idea of cooking a potato. When the Flem-
ings sent us the carrot, in the reign of Elizabeth, it is a
pity they could not have deprived it of its fibrine texture,
the drawback to be set against its saccharine nutritive-
ness. As the Bomans waxed strong upon the turnip, we
may allow that it has some virtues, and that Charles the
First's Secretary, Lord Townshend, did good service by
re-introducing it to his countrymen. Like the Jerusalem
artichoke, it requires a strong accompaniment of salt and
pepper, to counteract its watery and flatulent influences.
As for radishes, he who eats them is tormenting his
stomach with bad water, woody fibre, and acrid poison ;
,and if his stomach resents such treatment, why, it most
emphatically "serves him right." As for cucumber, in
the days of Evelyn, it was looked upon as only one
remove from poison, and it had better be eaten and
enjoyed with that opinion in memory. It is a pity that
what is pleasant is not always what is proper. Thus the
cucumber is attractiye, but not nutritive ; while the onions

THE MATEEIAIS FOE DUrOTG. 189

at whose very name every man stands witli his hand to
his month, like a Persian in the act of ad-oration, is
exceedingly nourishing and wholesome. But I can never
think of it, without remembering the story of the man
who, having breakfasted early on bread and onions, entered
an inn on a bitterly cold morning, with the remark, that
for the last two hours he had had the wind in his teeth.
" Had you ?" said the imfortunate person who happened
to be nearest to him : " then, by Jove, the wind had the
worst of it !"

An onion is all very well as an ingredient in a sauce,
but to make a meal of it ! Well ! it is on record that
a dinner has been made, at which nothing was served but
sauces. A dinner of sauces must have been quickly pre-
pared ; but, for quick preparation, I know nothing that
can vie with a feat accomplished, on the 18th of March
of the present year, at the Freemasons' Tavern. The
" Eound-Catch-and-Canon Club" were to dine there at
half-past :five P.M. An hour previously, the active Secre-
tary, Mr. Francis, Vicar-Choral of St. Paul's, arrived, to
see that " all was right." He found aU wrong. Through
some mistake, no company was expected ; and, there
being no other dinners ordered for that day, the weary
proprietors, and their chief " aids," were enjojdng a little
relaxation. Not only were the high priestesses of the
kitchen "out," but the sacred fires of the altars had fol-
lowed their example. Grreat was the horror of the able
counter-tenor Secretary ; but the difficulty was trium-
phantly met by the accomplished officers of the estabUsh-
ment ; and, at six o'clock precisely, forty-two of us sat
down to so perfect a banquet, that the shade of Careme
might have contemplated it with a smUe of unalloyed
satisfaction. This house may boast of this tour de force
for ever !

SAUCES.

The donor of the sauce dinner, mentioned in the last
page, was an eccentric old Major. He invited three persons
to partake of this unique repast. The soup consisted of
gravy sauce, and oyster and lobster sauce were handed
round instead of filet de sole. Then came the sirloin in
guise of egg sauce, on the ground, I suppose, that an egg
is proverbially "fuU of meat." There was no pheasant,
but there was bread sauce, to put his guests in mind of
the flavour ; and if they had not plum.-pudding, they had
as much towards it as could be implied by brandy sauce ;
just as Heyne says, that Munich is the modern Athens in
this far, — ^that if it has not the philosophers, it has the hem-
lock, and has Aleibiades' dog, as a preparation towards get-
ting Alcibiades. The sauce-boatswere emptied by the guests.
The wine was weU-resorted to after each boat, and a little
brandy settled the viand that was represented by the
egg sauce. Half the guests, between excess of lobster
sauce and Cognac, were all the worse for the banquet ; but
that proved rather the weakness of their stomachs, than
the non-excellence of the feast. It is said that the Major,
when alone in the evening, wound up with a rump-steak
supper; — a process rather characteristic of the " old
soldier ;" but I have heard, in a provincial town, of large
parties to "tea," followed by a snug family party, when
the guests were all departed, to a hot supper, with the
usual et cceteras. But let its get back from the supper to
the matter of seasonings.

SAUCES. 191

SeasoniBgs may be said to form an important item in
the practice and results of cookery. The first, and most
useful and natural, is salt. The ancients did not allow, at
one time, of its use in sacrifices ; hut Homer called it
" divine," and Plutarch speaks of it as acceptable to the
gods. Its value was not known to men until the
Phoenicians, Selech and Misor, — so, at least, says an
ancient legend, — taught mankind the real worth of this
production as a condiment, and thereby gave to meat
increased flavour, and to the eaters of it increased health
and improved digestions.

The Roman soldiers received their pay in salaritim, or
" salt-money. ' ' The Mexican rulers punished r ebelUous pro-
vinces by interdicting the use of salt ; and Holland, some
years since, cruelly took vengeance on the breakers of the'
law, by serving them with food, without salt, during the
term of their imprisonment. The poor wretches were
almost devoured by worms, in consequence of this inhuman
proceeding.

Of course, the salt-money of the soldiery was, like the
pin-money of a married lady, employed in other ways than
those warranted by its appeUation. For above three centu-
ries, soldiers served ffratis, and supported themselves. Then
came " salt-money," or salariimi, in the shape of a couple
of oloU daily to the foot, and a drachma to the cavalry.
This was to the common men. The Tribunes were, how-
ever, exorbitantly paid, if Juvenal's allusion may be
trusted, wherein he says that, —

" alter enim, quantum in legione Tnbuni
Accipiunt, donat Calvina vel Catienie ;"

or, as it may be translated,

" Such sums as a fnU Colonel's coffers swell.
He flings to Lola, or to Laura Bell 1"

But this must have been in very late times, previous to

192 TABM TEAITS.

wHch frugality, modesty, and indifferent pay were ever
the Tribune's share of the national virtues and their con-
sequences, lauded by Livy. The first Caesar doubled the
saTantm of the army, and decreed that it should never be
reduced. His successors followed the example of increase.
Augustus fixed the salt-money at ten asses a day, and by
the time 0f Domitiaia it was considerably more than
double that amount. From that period, the soldiery fed
better, and fought worse, than ever. Up to the time of
the Empire they had been frugal livers, and were not
above preparing the rations of corn allowed them with
their own hands : some ground it in hand-nulls, others
pounded it between stones, and the hastily-baked cakes
were eaten contentedly upon the turf, with nothing better
to wash them down than pure water, or, at best, posca,
which was water mixed with vinegar, — and a very whole-
some beverage, too, ia hot weather.

The Jewish dispensation, unlike that of the early
Olympian theology, enforced the use of salt in all sacri-
ficial ceremonies. That of the Dead Sea was abundant ;
and Galen pronounced it as the most favourable for
seasoning, and for promoting digestion. The Greeks
learned to eaU it " divincj" and at last consecrated it to
their gods. SpUimg salt was accounted as unlucky in
the days when " young Time counted his birthdays by the
sun," as in these modern times when the schoolmaster
is abroad, — sometimes too much abroad.

Ancus Martins was the first of the Koman Kings who
levied a duty on salt. He was not visited by the gods
— as legends sa,}' other Kings were who created such
imposts — ^by some dire calamity. The bad example of
Ancus Martius has continued over nearly the whole of
Europe : and a slave cannot eat salt to his bread without
paying tribute to the King.

The word " salt " was often used for life itself. When

BArcEs. 193

Dordalus says to Toxilus, in the " Persa" " Eodem mild
pretio sal prwhibetur quce tibi" — " I get my salt at the
same price as you do," — he simply means that his man-
ner of life is as good as that of Toxilus, and that a slave-
merchant is as respectable as the very best-fed of slaves
themselves. Catullus employs the word to denote
beauty ; other poets use it to signify virtues of various
kinds; and in Terence we find a man without salt to
mean a man without sense. Plutarch was not wrong
when he styled salt "the condiment of condiments." I
do not know that it has ever been used to point a pro-
verb with a contemptuous meaning, except in Greece,
where he who had nothing to dine upon was called a
" salt-Ucker." Rome, where it was of such commercial
importance, honoured it more by giving to the road
along which it was conveyed the name of " the Salarian
Way."

There were people who never knew its use, as in
Epeiros ; some who have steadily rejected it, as the
Bathvirst tribe in Australia. The Peruvians delighted in
it, and ate it mixed with hot pepper and bitter herbs, as a
sort of "sweetmeat." How sacred it is in Arabia, we all
know ; and, in illustration of it, I have heard of an Arab
burglar accidentally letting his tongue come in contact, as
he was plundering a house by night, with a piece of salt.
He instantly deemed he had partaken of the owner's
hospitality, and he departed without booty. Could
Christian thieves be so influenced, we should salt our
plate-baskets and cash-boxes nightly !

In Sicily a salt is spoken of that melts only in fire, and
hardens in water. At TJtica, one of the great salt
suppliers of the ancient world, it lay about in such huge
mounds, hardened by the sun and moon, that the pickaxe
would scarcely penetrate it. In Arabia whole cities were
once built of it, the blocks of salt being cemented by

o

194 TABIB TEAITS.

water. It is still procured witli most difficulty in
Abyssinia, where tlie clouds are supposed to deposit
the crystal ia sandy plains, of heat so furious, that it
is only during one or two hours of the night that the
seekers of it dare dash into the locality, and carry off, as
hastily as possible, what they seek. It is procured far
more pleasantly in those parts of Chili where it is found
deposited on the leaves of plants. Off the warmer coasts
of South America, and the stiU hotter shores of A&ica,
blocks weighing from one to two hundred weight have
been picked up. Some writers tell us that lakes are nothing
more than salt plains in solution ; and others, that salt
plains are merely lakes congealed. However this may be,
it is known that generally four gallons of water produce
one of salt; but there is great difference of result in
various localities, some water yielding a sixth, other only
a sixteenth. The deep sea-water is the most highly pro-
ductive. There are various strange ingredients, too,
used in different places to make the salt "grain"
properly. White of egg, butter, ale, and even blood, are
employed to produce the desired result. In its fossil or
mineral state it is nowhere seen to such great advan-
tage as in the mines of Williska, in Poland. I have seen
those near Salzburg, in southern Austria ; but these are
mere salt-cellars, compared with the Polish mine, which
forms a large subterranean city, has its streets, citizens,
and coteries, and is an undergroimd republic, many of
the natives of which die without seeing a blade of grass,
or a gleam of sunlight, upon the bosom of the upper
earth.

Finally, salt is the most natural stimulant for the
digestive organs ; but it should be remembered that too
much of it is almost as bad as too little. The lowering
of the price of salt, a consequence of the abolition of the
duty, was beneficial to the poor, and ruinous to th,e

SArcES, 195

worm-doctors. It is a singular production. In small
quantities it is a stimulating manure ; in large quantities
it begets sterility. A little of it accelerates putrefaction,
wMle a large quantity prevents it. Farther, it is to be
remembered, — and I have mentioned tbe fact in another
page, — ^that the salt in salted meat is not (whatever it
may once have been) the table salt, the use of which is so
favourable to digestion. In the meat it undergoes a
chymical change, by which it deteriorates itself as weU as
the object to which it is applied. " Sweet salt " was the
name once given to sugar ; and in reference to this latter
production, it may be safely averred, that its introduction,
worked a considerable change in society. And it appears
to have been early added to that " significant luxury,"
wheat. In Isaiah xhii. 24 there is an allusion made to
it in these words : " Thou hast bought me no sweet cane
with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of
.sacrifices." And again, in Jeremiah vi. 20: "To what
purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and
sweet cane from a far coimtry ?" It would seem, how-
ever, that though the sweet cane may have been known,
its nses were not very speedily appreciated, or, if they
were, that they were for a long time forgotten. Thus,
as late as the thirteenth century of our era, a writer
speaks of a novel sort of salt that has been discovered,
the flavour of which was sweet, and, as he suggests,
might be found acceptable to sick persons, because of its
soothing and cooling properties. "Honey out of the
rock," which was the sweetener most early noticed ia
Scripture, fell into comparative disuse, aftet sugar had
become a necessary of Ufe, after being first a medicine,
and then a luxury. The Spaniards received it from the
Arabs, and familiarized it in Europe. Its first settlement
beyond the Continent was in Madeira, and at length it
found a congenial soil in the islands of the Western
o 2

196 TABLE TBAITS.

■Indies. God gave the gift, but man has discovered how
to. abuse it to his own destruction ; and, from the sweet
food offered by an angel, he has distilled the fire-water,
which slays like the pestilence. But to return, for a
moment, from the sweets to the salts, and especially to
the latter in the form of brine.

The Eomans were fond of brine, — ^water ia which bay-
salt had been dissolved, — as a seasoning ; and after dinner,
those who could not guess the riddles that were put to
them, were punished, like the refractory gentlemen at the
tNightingale Club, by being compelled to swallow a cup-
fuU, without drawing breath. Apicius invented a com-
position made up of salt, pepper, ginger, thyme, celery,
rocket, and anise-seed, with lamoni, wild marjoram, holy
thistle, spikenard, parsley, and hyssop, as a specific to be
taken, after heavy dinners, against indigestion. They
who could digest the remedy need not have been afraid
of the dinner.

That universal seasoning of the classical world, the
garwm, was originally a shrimp sauce ; but it was subse-
quently made of the intestines of almost any fish, mace-
rated in water, saturated with salt ; and when symptoms
of putrefaction began to appear, a little parsley and
vinegar were added; and there was the famous garwm,
of which the inventors were so proud, — and particularly
of a garvm which was prepared in Spain. Mesh instead
of fish was occasionally used, with no difference iil the
process of preparation ; and it would be difficult to say
which was the nastier. But, pe;rhaps, if we could see
the witchery of preparing any of our own flavouring
sauces, we should be reluctant ever to allow a drop of the
polluted mixture to pass our lips. There is a bhss in
ignorance.

Pythagoras showed better taste in the science of
seasonings, when he took to eating nothing but honey

SAUCES, 197

wlierewitii to flavour bis bread, Hybla sounds sweet,
the very word smells sweet, from its association with
honey. Aristaeus, who is said to have discovered its use,
merited the patent of nobiEty, wberdby he was declared
to have descended from the gods ; and the placing the
honeycomb and its makers under the protection of Mel-
lona, expressly made by men for this purpose, was a proof
of the value in which they were held. Theophrastus
placed sugar among the honeys, — the honey of reeds, —
or the "salt of India," as some strangely called it. The
Greek physicians recommended its use, both as food and
as flavourer. It was at one time as scarce as cinnamon,
— that precious bark of which the phoenix made its nest,
and which the Caesars monopolized. Cumamon and cloves
were not employed in seasoniug until a comparatively
modem period. The good people of earUer days pre-
ferred veijuice, in certain cases prescribed by Galen.
They seemed to have a taste for acids : hence the admira-
tion, both in Greece and Eome, for viuegar and pickles.
Vinegar figured in the army statistics of Eome especially ;
but it once, at least, figured in a stiU more remarkable
way in the statistics of the French army, in the time
of Louis XIII., when the Due de la MeUleraye, Grand
Master of the Artillery of France, put down £52,000
as the sum expended by him in cooling cannons. How
hot the war must have been, and at what a price
the fever must have been maintained, when the merely
refrigerating process cost so much !

French epicures maintain that the pig was bom to be
"ringed," and that his mission was to rout at the foot of
the yoke-ebn trees, and turn up truffles ! Pliny gravely
looked upon the tmffle as a prodigy sown by the thunder-
bolt in autumnal storms. However this may be, all
lovers of good things eat the truffle with a sort of
devout ecstasy, in spite of the wide differences of opinion

198 TABLE TBAITS.

wMeh exist among the faculty of guessers, as to whether
the truffle be nutritious or poisonous, fit for food, or
monster sire of indigestion. The ' fact is, that they
should he delicately dealt with, like mushrooms ; of which
he who eats little is wise, and he who eats not of them
at all is safe from blaming them for bringing on indiges-
tion— as far as he is concerned.

The truffle is thus elaborately, yet not verbosely,
described by Archimagirus Soyer : " The truffle is a very
remarkable vegetable, which, without stems, roots, or
fibres, grows of itself, isolated in the bosom of the earth,
absorbing the nutritive juice. Its form is round, more or
less regular ; its surface is smooth, or tuberculous ; the
colour, dark brown outside, brown, grey, or white within.
Its tissue is formed of articulated filaments, between which
are spheric vesicles, and in the interior are placed repro-
ductive bodies, small brown spheres, called ' truffinelles.^
Truffles vegetate to the depth of five or sis inches in the
high sandy soils of the south-west of Prance, Piedmont,
&o. Their mode of vegetation and reproduction is not
known. (?) Dogs are trained to find them,^ as well as
pigs, and boars also, who are very fond of them. They
are eaten cooked under the ashes, or in wine and water.
They are preserved when prepared in oU, which is soon
impregnated with their odour. Poultry is stufied with
them ; also geese's livers, pies, and cooked pork, besides
numerous ragouts. They possess, as it is said, exciting
virtues." The latter, we suppose, is a paraphrase for the
sentiment of " Falstaff," before cited,- " It rains pota-
toes !" Shell-fish had the same reputation in the olden
time. " Tene mwFSwpmm," says Italius to Olympio, in
the Mudens : —

" Aii aique obsouia propera ; sed lepidi volo
Molliculas escas, ut ypsa mollicula est."

As for the mushroom, if it be not in itself deadly,

BATTCES. 199

it has been made the veMcle of death. Agrippina poisoned
Claudius in one, and Nero, his successor, had a respect
for this production ever after. Tiberius, in Pagan, and
Clement VII., in Papal, Eome, as weU as Charles VI. of
Prance, are also said to have been "approximately"
Idlled by mushrooms. Seneca calls them "voluptuous
poison," and of this poison his countrymen ate heartily,
and suffered dreadfully. The mushroom was not ren-
dered harmless by the process of Meander, — raising them
under the shadow of a well-irrigated and richly-manured
fig-tree.

One of the most perfect illustrations of "sauce," in
its popular sense, with which I am acquainted, is con
veyed in the reply once given by a French Cwri to his
Bishop. It is a regulation made by canonical law, that
a Priest cannot keep a female servant to manage his
household, unless she be of the assigned age of, at least,
forty years. It once happened that a Bishop dined with
a Gwre, at whose house the Prelate had arrived in the
course of a visitation torn*. On that occasion he found
that they were waited on at dinner by two quietly pretty
female attendants, of some twenty years each. When
diocesan and subordinate were once more alone, the
former remarked on the uncanonical condition of the
household, and asked the Cv/re if he were not aware that,
by rule of church, he could maintain but one menagere,
who must have attained, at least, forty years of age?
" I am quite aware of it, Monseigneur," said the rubicund
Owrd; " but, as you see, I prefer having my housekeeper
in two volumes ! "

With respect to the use of spices, it may be safely said,
that the less they are used, the better for the stomach.
A soupqon c£ them in certain preparations is not to be
objected to; but it must be recollected that in most
cases, however pleasant they may be to th« palate, the

200 a?ABLE TEAITS.

apparent vigour wUcli they give to the stomach is at
the expense of the liver, and the reaction leaves the
former in a worse condition than it was in before.

The world probably never saw a second time such a
trade in spices as that which was carried on of old
between Canaan and Egypt. The Dutch and Amboyna
was a huckstering matter compared with it. Egypt sent
Canaan her corn, wine, oil, and Hnen ; and Canaan sent,
in return, her spicery, balm, myrrh, precious woods, and
minerals. The Ishmaelites were the carrying merchants ;
and, while each class of them had its especial article of
commerce, they aU dabbled a little in slave-dealing.
Thus, the men of the tribe that purchased Joseph dealt
in spicery only, — a term including bahn and myrrh. The
Egyptian demand for the article was enormous. At the
period of the sale of Joseph, spicery was most extensively
used, not only for the embalming of men, but of sacred
animals. In after times, this practice ceased to a great
extent, on account of a large failure in the supply.

There is something very characteristic of the " ancient
nation" in the transaction of the brethren with respect
to Joseph. The general proposal was to slay him ; but
it was Judah, first of his race, who, with a strong eye to
business, exclaimed, "What profit to slay our brother,
and conceal his blood ? Come, let us sell Jiim to the
Ishmaelites." The opposition to fratricide, on the part
of Judah, was not on the principle that it was a crime,
but that it brought nothing. But, no sooner had ihe
pointed out how they might get rid of the troublesome
brother, and put money in their purses to boot, than the
profligate kinsmen adopted the project with alacrity, pre-
ferring lucrative felony to downright profitless murder,
— Do I hear you remark. Sir, that it has ever been thus
with this rebellious Jewish people ? Well, let us not be
rash in assertions. Judah was a very mercenary fellow,

SATCBS. 201

no doubt ; but it was better to sell a live brother into a
slavery which gave him the chance of sitting at the table
of Pharaoh Phiops, than to mxirder one for the mere sake
of making money by the sale of the body, as was done by
a Christian gentleman of the name of Burke.

There are some plants used in seasoning which have
been esteemed for other vii'tues besides lending a fillip to
the appetite. Others of these seasoning plants have
acquired an evil reputation. Thus orach was said to
cause paUor and dropsy. Rocket had a double use : it
not only was said to remove freckles, but an infusion of it
in wine rendered the hide of a scourged convict insensible to
the whip. Pennel was, unlike asparagus, held to be good
for the sight. Dill, on the other hand, injured the eyes,
while it strengthened the stomach. Anise-seed was in
great favour with the medical philosophers, who pre-
scribed it to be taken, 'fasting, in wine ; and hyssop wine
was a specific for cutaneous eruptions, brought on by
drinking wine of a stronger quality. Wild thyme cured
the bite of serpents, — if the sufferer could only collect it
in time; and pennyroyal was sovereign for indigestion.
Rue cured the ear-ache, and nullified poisons ; for which
latter purpose it was much used by Mithridates. Mint
was gaily eaten, with many a joke, because it was said to
have been originally a pretty girl, metamorphosed by
Proserpine. The Romans, now and then, ate camomile
at table, just as old country ladies, when tea was first
introduced, and sent to them as a present, used to boil
the leaves, and serve them, at dinner, like spinach.
Capers, in the olden time, were vulgar berries, and left
for democratic digestion. "I once saw growing in
Italy," said an Irish traveller, fit to be " own correspond-
ent" to one of the morning papers, "the finest anchovies
I ever beheld !" A listener naturally doubted the alleged
fact ; and the offended Irishman not only called him out,

202 TABLE TEAITS.

biit shattered Ms knee-cap by a pistol-shot. As he was
leaping about with intensity of pain, the Irishman's
second remarked to his principal, that he had made his
adversary cut capers, at any rate. " Capers !" exclaimed
the Hibernian, "capers! 'faith, that *s it. • Sure, Sir," he
added, advancing to his antagonist, " you were right ; it
was not anchovies, but capers, that I saw growing. I
beg pardon: don't think any more about it." Let us
add, that, if the aristocratic ancients deeply declined
capers, they were exceedingly fond of assafoetida, as a
seasoning ingredient. Green ginger was also a popular
condiment ; and it is commonly eaten in Madagascar at
this day. I suppose that, in former times, HuU imported
this production in large quantities, and that therefore one
of her streets is called "the Land of Green Ginger."
The Eomans gave wormwood wine to the charioteers,
perhaps considering that the stomachic beverage would
secure them from dizziness.

I have mentioned above that Mithridates patronized
rue as a nuUifier of poisons. He was in the habit of
swallowing poisons, as people in the summer swallow
ices ; and he was famous for inventing antidotes, to
enable him to take them with impunity. One conse-
quence is, that he has gained a sort of immortality in our
pharmacopoeia; and " Mithridate," in pharmacy, is a
compound medicine, in form of an electuary, serving
as either a remedy or a preservative against poisons, being
also accounted a cordial, opiate, sudorific, and alexiphar-
mic. " Mithridate" is, or rather, I suppose, was, one of
the capital medicines in the apothecaries' shops. The
preparation of it, according to the direction of the Col-
lege, is as follows ; and. I request my readers to peruse it
attentively, and to get it by heart, in case of necessity
supervening. Here is the facile recipe : " Take of cinna-
mon, fourteen drachms ; of myrrh, eleven drachms ; aga-

SATTCIS. 203

rick, spikenard, ginger, saffron, seeds of treaele-mustard,
frankincense, Ohio turpentiae, of eacli ten dracliins;
camel's hay, costus, Indian leaf, Frencli lavender, long
pepper, seeds of haitwort, juice of the rape of cistus,
strained storax, opopanax, strained galhanum, halsam of
GUead, or, in its stead, expressed oil of nutmegs, Kussian
castor, of each an ounce ; poly-mountain, water german-
der, the fruit of the halsam tree, seeds of the carrot of
Crete, hdellium strained, of each seven drachms ; Celtic
nard, gentian root, leaves of dittany of Crete, red roses,
seed of Macedonian parsley, the lesser Cardanum seeds
freed from their husks, sweet fennel seeds, gum Arahic,
opium strained, of each five drachms ; root of the sweet
flag, root of wild valerian, anise-seed, sagapenum strained,
of each three drachms ; spignel, St. John's wort, juice of
acacia, the bellies of sciaks, of each two drachms and a
half; of clarified honey, thrice the weight of aU the rest :
dissolve the opium first in a little wine, and then mix it
with the honey made hot. In the mean time, melt toge-
ther, in another vessel, the galbanum, storax, turpentine,
and the balsam of Gilead, or the expressed oil of nutmeg,"
(I have no doubt that one will do quite as well as the
other ; and this must be highly satisfactory for sufferers
to know,) "continually stirring them round, that they
may not bum ; and, as soon as these are melted, add to
them the hot honey, first by spoonsful, and afterwards
more freely. Lastly, when this mixture is nearly cold,
add by degrees the rest of the spices reduced to pow-
der," and, as the French quack used to say of his

specific for the toothache, if it does you no harm, it will
certainly do you no good. For my own part, I think the
remedy worse than the disease ; but a gentleman just
poisoned may be of another opinion ; and I can only say,
that if, with prussic acid knocking at his pylorus, he has
leisure to wait till the above prescription is made up for

204 TABLE TEAITS.

Mm, — ^till the bellies of scinks and the camel's hay are
procured, and till the ingredients are amalgamated " by-
degrees," — ^he win, if he survive the poison, the waiting,
and the remedy, have deserved to be called, kot' iloxhv,
the "patient." But here are the pastry and the fruits;
and there aeb people who are given to believe that pastry
and poison are not very wide asunder.

When Murat wished to instigate the Italians to labour,
he cut down their olive-trees. The Jews were forbidden
to destroy fruit-trees, even in an enemy's country ; and it
used to be a law in Prance, and may be so still, that when
an individual had received permission to cut down one of
his trees, it was on condition of his planting two. The
planters of vineyards enjoyed many privileges nnder the
Jewish dispensation, and heathen governments placed
both vineyards and orchards under the protection of the
most graceful of their deities, and these deities were sup-
posed to have an especial affection for particular trees.
The Romans were skilled in forcing their fruits, which
were produced at the third course, and not, as with the
Greeks, at the second.

Minerva is popularly said to have given birth to the
oUve, which was the emblem of Peace, the latter being
naturally born of Wisdom. But the poisoned shafts of Her-
cules were made of the oUve, perhaps to symbolize those
armed neutraUties which are generally so fatal to powers
with whom the neutrals affect to be at peace. The Auto-
crat of Eussia, for instance, has been dealing very largely
in olive shafts, tipped with death. But the oUve was
known to the world before Wisdom, taking flesh, sprang
in her bright panoply from the brain of her sire, and was
called Minerva. Prom Judea the olive was taken into
Greece ; it was not planted within the territory of Rome
until a later period ; and, finally, in Spain it found a soil
as favourable to cultivation as that of DecapoUs, on holy

EETJITS. 205

ground. The Ancona olives were the njost highly
esteemed by the Eoman Patricians, at whose tables they
opened and closed the banquet. While the olives were
greedily swallowed, the expressed oil was distributed by
way of largess to the people. It was declared to possess,
if not a vital principle, something that stimulated and
maintained vitahty. Augustus, who was for ever whiti-
ingly hoping that he might die easily, and for ever
chanting the prayer, "Euthanasia!" asked PoUio how
he might best maintain his health and strength in old
age. " You have nothing in the world to do," said PoUio,
" but to drink abundance of wine, and lubricate your impe-
rial carcase with plenty of oU!" — a prescription which
does not say much for the medical instruction of PoUio.
OUve oil was so scarce at one time, in Europe, that
in 817 the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle authorized the
priests to manufacture anointing oil from bacon. With
regard to the fruit itself, it has not even yet undisputed
possession of the pubUc approval ; and I am very much of
the opinion of the farmer who, having taken some at his
landlord's table, expressed his indignation on reaching
home, that he had been served with gooseberries stewed
in ^biine.

The pahn-tree wine of the Hebrews inspired song,
and thence, perhaps, did the palm itself pass into the
possession of the mythological Muses. The palm-tree
deserved to be a popular tree : its wood furnished man
with a house, its branches with fuel ; its leaves aflfbrded
hiTn garments, and a bed ; and from them he could manu-
facture baskets, wherein to carry the fruit, bread, and
cakes which he could make from its dates. I am only
astonished that tradition has not made the palm, rather
than -the beech or the oak, the original tree which first
fed, clothed, and sheltered man.

The cherry, compared with the pahn, is but as a rustic

206 TABLE TBAITS.

beauty, compared witli Cleopatra. MitLridates and Lu-
cullus share tte glory of making men acquainted with its
fruit. Prom Cerasus, in Asia, Lucullus, no doubt, trans-
planted a cultivated fruit-tree, of a peculiarly fine sort ;
but the fruit itself was not unknown to the Eomans long
anterior to the time of Lucullus. It was slow in acquiring
an esteem in Italy. The most extraordinary species oi
cherry with which I am acquainted, is the Australian
cherry, which grows with the stone on the outside. But
Natiwe, in Australia, is distinguished for her freaks.
There the pears are made of wood, and salt-water fish
abound in the fresh-water rivers ! The nastiest species I
know of, grows in the vicinity of^ and some of them
within, the cemetery of Pere-la-Chaise, at Paris. They
are magnificent to the eye, and are not iU-flavoured ;
but, at the heart of each there is a maggot, as fat as
one of Eubens's Cupids, and, saving a sUght bitterness,
with as much of the taste of the cherry in him as a
citizen of ripe Stilton has of the cheese of which he is so
lively a part. There is not a bad story told of an old
and poor Spanish Grandee, who used to put on spectacles
when he sat down to his modest dinner of bread and
cherries, in order that the fruit might gain, apparently,
in magnitude. There was philosophy in this pleasant
conceit! If the poor nobleman had had a dish of our
cherries, from Kent, Berks, or Oxfordshire, he would not
Lave stood in need of his nieiry delusion.

How grateful to the palate is the Armenian apricot,
blushing, in its precocity, like a young nymph ; or the
Persian peach, for a couple cif which the Komans would
give a score of pounds ! The peach has an evil tradition
with it. It is said to have been originally poisonous, but
to have lost its deadhness when it was transplanted.
Perhaps the peculiarly peachy odour of prussic acid may
have contributed to give exirrency to a very long-lived,

TETTITS. 207

but entirely foundationless, tradition, — except, indeed,
that poison may be extracted from tbe kernel ; but so may
arsenic from a Turkey carpet, and, indeed, from apple-
pips also, as Sir Fitzroy Kelly told the jury, when endea-
vouring to save from the gallows a man who had mur-
dered his mistress, in order that he might not put in peril
his respectability ! Perhaps the plum-tree, whether of
Africa or Asia, from Egypt or Damascus, has been more
fatal to health, if not to hfe, than any other of the stone-
fruits. When Pliny complained of their superabundant
propagation in Italy, he probably had in view the usual
consequences of a very plentiful plum season.

The apricot was not known in France till the eleventh
century, and then they were accounted dear at a farthing
each. In the same century cherries used to appear at the
royal table in May. To effect this, Ume was laid at the
roots of the tree, which was irrigated with warm water !
Louis XIII. was fond of early fruit, and he had strawberries
in March, and figs in June : this is more than the most
expert fig-rearers in Sussex ever accomplished ! The fig
used to be esteemed as only inferior to that compound of
luscious savours, the pine, — a fruit which, in the seven-
teenth century, was religiously patronized by the Jesuits.
The same sort of sanction was given in the East to dates,
though these were fashionable in Home, after a basket of
them had been sent from Jericho to Augustus. The
Tunis dates are the best ; but indulgence in them is said
to loosen the teeth, and produce scurvy. The Tunisian
ladies, however, were as fond of them as the French
ladies were of sweet citrons, before oranges were patron-
ized by Loms XIV. The ladies used to carry them
about, and occasionally suck them, the operation being
considered excellent to produce ruby Ups. The citron was
hajdly less popular than the Eeiue Claude plum, whicJi
received its pretty name from the Queen of Francis I., and

208 TABLE TEAITS.

daughter of Louis XII. I have noticed the Sussex fig :
the white fig of the Channel Islands is also highly prized ;
and there is a tree at Hampton Court renowned for its
fruit, but they who eat had better not too curiously
inquire as to where the root of that productive tree pene-
trates, in order to accomplish its productiveness. In Sicily,
they acupuncture the tree, and drop into it a little oU,
and this is said to improve the flavour of the fruit. To
what I have previously said of the peach, I may add here
what the Chinese say of it; namely, that it produces
eternity of life, and prevents corruption until the end of
the world. This species would be a popular one in
England.

Some writers assert that the apple was originally an
African; but a Negro with a red nose would be an
anomaly ; and the apple-tree does not look as if it came
from the country of the children of the sun. Neverthe-
less, historians assert that it crossed the Mediterranean,
and reached Normandy through Spain and France. The
apple has been as productive of similes as of cider ; and
perhaps the prettiest is that of Jeremy Taylor, who says,
in his Sermon 'on the "Marriage Ring," that the "celi-
bate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a per-
petual sweetness ; but sits alone, and is confined, and dies
in singularity:" — a figure of speech, by the way, not
highly calculated to frighten a bachelor. But, after all,
the sentiment of Jeremy Taylor is preferable to that of
Gregory of Nazianzum, who calls a wife " an acquired evil ;
and, what is worse, one that cannot be put away." How-
ever this may be, apples were once productive of matri-
mony in Wales. When the fruit-dealers there could not
find a market, they, proclaimed a dance. The revellers
paid entrance-money, and received apples in return.
These meetings were called "apple lakings;" and the
fruit was sauce for many a consequent wedding dinner.

FETTITa. 209

The finest used to be kept for accompaniment to the
roast goose eaten on St. Crispin's Day. Brides, in remote
times, used to carry a love-apple in their bosoms ; as
fond thereof as the pitman's wife of Northumberland was
of the two lambs which she suckled, after their dams had
been killed in a storm. This was a more creditable affec-
tion than that of Marc Antony's daughter for a lam-
prey, which she adorned with ear-riugs, and which she
exhibited at dinner ; as Lord Erskine did the leeches
which had cured him of some complaint, and which,
enclosed in a bottle, he sent round with the wine. He
called one " Cline" and the other " Home," from the great
surgeons of those names ; and noble guests, before filling
their glasses, gravely inspected the leeches, and then duly
passed on the reptiles and the wine.

This is what a Frenchman woiild have called a " triste
plaisanterie, a VAnglaise;" and, by the way, I may
remark, that TheophHe de Garancieres imputes the alleged
melancholic nature of Englishmen to the great use which
we make of sugar. Our sires used to make one curious
use of sugar, undoubtedly ; namely, when they put it into
the mouth of the dying, in order that their souls might
pass away with less bitterness !

There is a German proverb which says, that "it is
tmadvisable to eat cherries with potentates." In English
ithis might mean, "Do not make too free with your
betters." Few royal families, however, have given their
inferiors more frequent opportunities to "eat cherries"
with them, than that of Prussia. I am reminded of this
while upon the subject of pine-apple, a slice .of which was
once given by Frederick William III. to a lad employed
in the gardens at Sans Souci. "Here," said the Eang,
pleasantly, " eat, enjoy, and reflect while thou art eating.
Now, what does it taste like ? " The boy looked puzzled,
as he munched the pine ; thought of all the most delight-

p

210 TJlBIE teaits.

ful things that had ever passed over his palate and clung
to his memory, and, at last, with a satisfied expression,
exclaimed, "I think, — ^yes, it does, — it tastes like sau-
sage!" The courtiers laughed aloud; and the King,
philosophizing on the boy's answer, said, "Well, every
one has his own standard of taste, guiding his feelings
and judgment, and each one believes himself to be right.
One fancies he discovers in the pine-apple the flavour of
the melon ; another, of the pear ; a third, the plum. Yon
lad, in his sphere of tastes, finds thereia his favourite
food — the sausage."

The lad's answer was as much food for mirth at Sans
Souci, as was that of the Eton boy who was invited by
Queen Adelaide to dine at Windsor Castle, and who was
honoured with a seat at Her Majesty's side. The boy
was bashful, — the Queen encouraging ; and, when the
sweets were on the table, she kiudly asked him what, he
would Eke to take. The Etonian's eyes glanced hur-
riedly and nervously from dish to dish ; pointing to one of
which, he, in some agitation, exclaimed, " One of those
twopenny tarts!" His young eye had recognised the
favourite " tuch " he was in the habit of indulging in at
tJie shop in Eton, and he asked for it according to the
local phrase in fashion. Eeverting to the lad who com-
pared pine-apple to German sausage, I may remark, that
pine-apple is most to be enjoyed when the weather is of
that condition which made Sydney Smith once express a
wish, that he could " slip out of his fat, and sit in his
bones."

The quince is a native of Cydon, in Crete ; and first
Greece, and then Eome, Gaul, and Spain, learned to love
the fruit, and drink a quince wine, which was said to be
excellent either as a stomachic or as a counter-poison.

Galen recommended the pear as an astringent, which is
more than a modern practitioner wiU. do. St. Francis de

I'EUITS. 211

Paul introduced one sort into France when he paid a
medical visit to Louis XI. The species was named from
the saint, " le Ion Chretien."

The apple may lay fair claim to antiquity of birth.
The fruit has been diversely estimated by divers nations ;
but the general favour has usually awaited it. In ancient
times, both ia Greece and Persia, it was the custom for a
bridegroom at his nuptial feast to partake of a single
apple, and of nothing else. The origin of the custom is
said to arise from a decree issued by Solon. It was the
sight of an apple that always put Vladislas, Xing of
Poland, iuto fits. It is the best fruit that can be taken
as an accompaniment to wine ; and the best sorts for
such a purpose are the Eibstone Pippin and the Coster
Pearmain. The golden apples stolen by Hercules were
lemons ; and they are suspected to have been the " Median
apples " of Theophrastus. The Eomans, at first, employed
this Asiatic fruit only as a means for keeping moths out
of garments ; from this household use it passed into the
ancient pharmacopoeia, and it took rank among the
counter-poisons. Its acknowledged reputation in scurvy
and punch, if I may so express myself, was not made
until a much later period of civilization. The orange
disputes with the lemon the honour of being the " Hes-
perides apples," — which is a dispute of a very Hibernian
character. China was probably its native place; and
the Portuguese oranges are merely descendants of the
original "Chinaman." It was not known in France
imtil introduced there by the Constable de Bourbon. In
England, an orange, stuck full of cloves, was a fitting
New Tear's present from a lover, — ^being typical of
warmth and sweetness.

The fig-tree appears to have been, like the vine, very-
early used as a symbol of peace and plenty. It was a
tree of Eden ; yet the Athenians claimed it as a native
p 2

212 TABLE TEAITS.

tree, asserting, by way of proof, tHat it had been given
them by Ceres, — ^not reflecting that Ceres may have
brought it from a region farther east. If it be com-
monly employed in Scriptm-e as a symbol, so an American
poet has taken it, with its scriptural allusions, to illus-
trate worldly marriages, of which he says, that —

■ they are lite unto

Jeremiah's figs :
The good are very good indeed ;
The bad, not fit for pigs.

The authorities of Attica were so fond of fkeir figs, that
they passed a law against the exportation of the fruit.
The advocates of free trade in figs broke the law when
they could do so with profit ; and the men who affected
to be on friendly terms with them, in order to betray
their proceedings to the Magistrates, were called by a
name which is now given to all fawning traitors, — ^they
were styled, sycophants, or "fig-declarers." Even the
philosophers in Greece became greedy in presence of figs ;
and "with figs famished armies have been braced anew for
the fight. The atMetm ate of them before appearing in
the arena ; and more than one invasion has been traced
to the taste of the invader for figs. Medical men were
divided in opinion as to the merits of this fruit. It was
considered indigestible; but, to remedy that, almonds
were recommended to be eaten with it ! The Romans,
perhaps, were wiser, who took pepper with them, as we
do with melon; and Dr. Madden says that we should
never €at figs at all, if we could only spend half an hour
in Smyrna, and see them packed. So, as I have before said,
a sight of the kitchen, just before dinner, would take away
appetite ; but as people do not commonly go to Smyrna,
or sit with their cooks, why, figs and dinners will continue
to be eaten. Modern professors have resembled ancient

FETITS. 213

philosophers in an uncontroUahle appetite for figs. Who
has not heard of the famous Oxford fig, which, in its
progress to luscious maturity, was protected hy an inscrip-
tion appended to it, conveying information to the efiect
that "this is the Principal's fig!" which a daring
Undergraduate one day devoured, and added insult to
injury by changing the old placard for one on which was
written, "A fig for the Principal?" The felonious fig-
stealer must have been more rapid in his sacrilege, than
the poet Thomson was in his method of enjoying his own
peaches in his garden at Eew. Atthed in the loosest
and dirtiest of morning-gowns, the author of the " Castle
of Indolence" used to watch his peaches ripening in the
sun. When he saw one bursting with liquid promise, he
was too lazy to take his xmwashed hands from his well-
worn pockets, and pluck the blushing treasure. No;
" Jamie " simply sauntered up to it, contemplated it for
a moment with a yawn, and finished his yawn by biting
a piece out of the fruit, — leaving the ghastly remains
on the branch for wasps and birds to divide between
them.

As the Athenian rulers kept their figs, so did the Per-
sian Kings their walnuts, — and more selfishly ; for no one
but their most sacred Majesties dared eat any ; but one
would think that even they would find it hard to digest
all the walnuts that the country could produce. It is
averred, that walnuts entered largely into the Mithrida-
tio recipe against poison. The modern recipe, called
" Mithridate," I have given elsewhere ; but that which
Pompey is said to have found in the palace of the King
whom he had overthrown, was as follows : " Pound, with
care, two walnuts, two dried figs, twenty pounds of rue, and
a grain of salt." Yes, we should say it must be taken
cum grano. Howbeit, the royal physician goes on to say,
" Swallow this mixture, — ^precipitate it with a httle wine,

214 TABLE TEAITa.

— and you have nothing to fear from the action of the
most active poison, for the space of four-and-twenty
hours." There would, probably, be less to fear after that
time had elapsed than before.

Nuts have not had respectability conferred on them,
even by Nero, who was wont to go incog, to the upper
gallery of the theatre, and take delight in pelting them
on the bald head of the Prsetor, who sat below. That
official knew the offender, and was rewarded for bearing
the attack good-humouredly ; and thence, perhaps, the
proverb which characterizes something falling, at once
sudden and pleasant, by the term, "That 's nuts !" Of
course, nuts were in fashion; not so chestnuts, — ^these
were as much disliked by the Patricians as the filbert and
hazel were said, in France, to be hated by the sun.
When they were ripening, the inhabitants used to issue
forth at sunrise, and endeavour to frighten the lumiaary
out of the firmament, by making a horrid uproar, with
pots, pans, and kitchen utensils generally. And this was
done under a Christian dispensation. The people were
not heathen Chinese, trying to cure an ecKpsed planet
by attacking the dragon that was supposed to be swallow-
ing it, with a tintamarre of caldron, kettle, tongs, and
trivet.

The Athenians were great hands at dumplings, consist-
ing of fruit, covered with a light and perfumed paste ;
and Ehodes, verifying the proverb, that " exti-emes meet,"
was as famous for its gingerbread as for its Colossus.
The Eoman wedding-cake was a simple mixture of sweet
wine and flour; and the savilum pie, made of flour,
cheese, honey, and eggs, 'was a dish to make all sorts of
guests jubilant. It was, in short, the national pie ; and
if there were a dish that was more popular, it was the
artocreas, a huge mince-pie, and the imperial pie of
Verus, compounded of sow's flank, pheasant, peacock.

PASTET. 215

Lam, and wild boar^ all hashed together, and covered with
crust. If Emperors invented pies, so did philosophers
create cakes ; and the libuna of Cato was a real cheese-
cake, that gave as much delight as any of the same
author's works in literature. Cheese was a favourite
foundation for many of the Boman cakes ; but he was a
bold man who added chalk, and so invented the placenta.
Yet the placenta was eaten as readily as Charles XII.
swallowed raspherry-tarts, Frederick II. Savoy cakes, or
Marshal Saxe — ^who loved pastry, pastrycooks, and pastry-
cooks' daughters — macaroons.

The Church honoured pastry, — or would so pious a King
as St. Louis have raised the pastrycooks to the dignity of
a guild? The Abbey of St. Denis, long before this,
stipulated with the tenant-farmers, that they should
deUver a certain quantity of flour, to make pastry with ;
and, in some cases, in France, portions of the rent for
lands was to be paid in puff pastry. This was at a time
when fennel-root tooth-picks used to appear at table,
thrust into the preserved fruits, and every one was
expected to help himself. Certainly our refined neigh-
bours had some questionable customs. See what L'Etoile
says : (1596 :) " Les confitures secJies et les massepains y
etaient si pew ^pargn4s que les dames et demoiselles etaient
eontraintes de s'en decTia/rger sv/r les pages et laquais,
auxqiiels on les haillait tout entiers."

Prince George of Denmark, the consort of Queen
Anne, was never suspected of intermeddling with the
foreign pohcy of the kingdom ; but he was something
renowned for his appetite, and for the bent of it towards
pastry. I think it is Archdeacon Coxe, in his " Life of
the Duke of Marlborough," who says of this illustrious
Prince, that he would leave the battle-field, in the very
heat of action, and come into camp, with the hungry
inquiry, if it were not yet dinner-time. This was some-

216 TASIiB TEAMS.

thing worse than drawing off the hoimcls, or unloading
the fowling-pieces, because the " Castle hell" was peremp-
torily ringing to luncheon. Prince George was just the
sort of man — fond of good living, and able to entertain
others with the same predilection — who was likely to be
surrounded by parasites ; and the remembrance of this
fact suggests that, while the wine is passing round, I
may venture to give a sketch of that ancient and remark-
able gentleman, "the Parasite." It is better than
getting upon controversial subjects, which are productive
of anything but unanimity. I remember one of the very
pleasantest of "after-dinners" being marred by a guest,
who, having slipped into the assertion that the Jews
were the earliest of created people, was indiscreet enough
to try to maintain what he had asserted, and weak
enough to be angry at finding it summarily rejected.
Why, Father Abraham himself was but a foreign Heathen,
from Ur of the Chaldees ; and to claim primeval antiquity
for the Jews is only as absurd as if one were to say, that
Yankees and mint julep were anterior to Alfred's cakes
and the Anglo-Saxons.

But many a hasty assertion has been simply the effect
of an antagonism between imperfect chymification and
the oppressed intellect. Mind and matter have much
influence on each other ; and, for the guidance of those
interested in such questions, I may, while on the subject
of dinner, notice, that from Dr. Beaumont's " Table,"
drawn out to show the mean time of digestion in the
stomach (or chymification) of various articles of food, we
learn that boiled tripe ranks first in amiable facility, being
disposed of in about one hour. Venison steak requires
some half-hour more. Boiled turkey and roast pig are
classed together, as requiring two hours and twenty -five
minutes for the process of digestion ; while roast turkey
and hashed meat demand five minutes more. Pricasseed

DE. rOEBES WTNSLO'W. 217

cMeten is not more facile of digestion than boiled salt
beef, both requiring two hours and three-quarters.
Boiled mutton, broiled beefsteak, and soft-boUed eggs,
take three hours ; while roast beef and old strong cheese
trouble the stomach for some three hours and a half.
Eoast duck, and fowls, whether boiled or roasted, are
alike slow of digestion : they require four hours as their
mean time oi chymification, and are only exceeded by
boiled cabbage, which requires full half-an-hour more. I
borrow these details from an article in. the " Journal of
Psychological Medicine," for January, 1851, a periodical
edited by Dr. Forbes Winslow. I beUeve I do not err in
attributing the article in question (" Mental Dietetics") to
the able pen of the aceompHshed Editor himself, than
whom no man has a better right to speak ex cathedra
on the subject in question. It will be seen, by the
following extract from this article, that diet influences
the mind as well as the body. " The nutritive particles
of the food," says' Dr. Winslow, "being in the form
of chyle, mixed with the blood, and supplying it with the
elements which enable it to repair the waste of the ani-
mal system, it is obvious that the health, both of the body
and of the mind, must depend on the quaUty and quan-
tity of the vital stream. According to Lecanu, the pro-
portion of the red globules of the blood may be regarded
as a measure of vital energy ; for the action of the serum
and of the globules on the nervous system is very dif-
ferent. The former scarcely excites it, the latter do so
powerfully. Now those causes which tend to increase
the mass of blood, tend also to increase the proportion of red
globules ; whilst those which tend to diminish the mass
of blood, tend to diminish the proportion of the globules.
The result is obvious. A large quantity of stimulating
animal food, without a proper amount of exercise, aug-
ments the number of the red globules, and diminishes

218 TABLE TEAITS.

the aqueous part of the blood. Hence the nervous sys-
tem becomes oppressed, the brain frequently congested,
and the intellectual faculties no longer enjoy their wonted
activity. In the mean time, the system endeavours to
relieve itself by throwing a counter-stimulus upon certain
other organs, the functions of which are morbidly
increased. The blood, in such cases, becomes pretematu-
rally thickened, and its coagulum unusually firm. On
the other hand, if the system be not supplied with the
requisite amount of nutrition, the blood becomes, by the
loss of its red corpuscles, impoverished in quality, and,
in cases of extreme abstinence, diminished in quantity.
In these cases the powers of the mind soon become
enfeebled."

But we will pass from these scientific matters, to seek
the company of one who, if ignorant of science, was,
generally, a great man in the profession of his peculiar
art, — the ancient parasite.

THE PARASITE.

" Pity those wlose flanks grow great,

Swell'd by the lard of others' meat." — Heeeick.

Paba, "near," and sitos, "corn," pretty well explain
what the Greeks understood by the word "parasite."
As the worthless weed among the wheat, so was this
classical Skimpole in the field of society. As the weed
hung for support to the substance that promised to yield
it, so did the parasite cling to the side of those who kept
good tables, and lacked wit to enliven them.

The parasite was too delicate a fellow to allow of invi-
dious distinctions. He supped or dined wherever he was
invited, and at marriage-feasts waited for no invitation
at all. There he was in his glory. He was the cracker
of jokes, and of the heads of those who did not agree
with every word that fell from the lips of the Amphi-
tryon of the horn:. He usually, however, got his own skull
bruised by the watch, when staggering home through the
dark, "full of the god," and without a slave to direct his
steps. But it was only with the morning that he
became conscious at once of pain from the bruises, and
the necessity of providing, at the cost of others, for his
own breakfast.

These professional "livers out" were, however, not
always unattended. The victims whom they flattered
sometimes lent them a slave. Their wardrobe seldom
extended beyond two suits, one for the public, and one
for wear at home. They looked abroad for dupes, just as

220 TABLE TEAITS.

our ring-droppers used to do, and for the same purpose.
The parasite generally attached himself to the first simple-
looking personage he encountered, provided he bore with
him proofs of being a man who could afford to live well.
Simpleai usually swallowed with complacency all the
three-piled flattery with which the parasite troubled him ;
and if he were expecting friends to dinner, the gastro-
nome, who wanted one, was probably invited. But there
was always an understanding, that, in return for the
invitation, he was to maintain, for the diversion of the
company, a continual fire of jokes. If he proved but a
sorry jester, he was promptly scourged into the street,
down which he ran, nothing abashed, to look for hearers
whom indifferent jests could move to ready laughter.

The parasite looked upon the fortune and table of
others as a property which was properly to be held in
common. Monsieur Prudhon really started a parasitical
precept, when he tried to establish, that what belonged
to one man belonged to a great many others besides.
But if, as regarded his own share in property that was
not his own, the parasite was so far a Communist, he
was the most charitable of fellows, his earnest prayer
being, that none of his patrons might ever fall into such
distress as to be unable to give good dinners. The
dinner-table was his arena. If he got but one meal a
day, he consumed enough thereat to satisfy half-a-dozen
appetites ; and, as he ate, it was matter of perfect indif-
ference to him whether he was called upon to find wit for
the guests, or to be the butt of their own. You might
buffet him till he were senseless, provided the blows were
afterwards paid for in brimming glasses.

He was always first at a feast ; and as he was as com-
mon an object at a feast as the sauce itself, -so "sauce"
was the common name for a parasite. There he was not
only wit, butt, and buUy, but porter also ; and his oflB.ee

THE PAEASITE. 221

was not merely to knock down tlie drunken, but to carry
them out when incapable of performing that office for them-
selves. The parasites had a dash, too, of the " bravo " in
their character, and let themselves out for a dozen other
purposes besides dining. The stronger-bodied and the
braver-souled let out their strength. " Do you want a
wrestler ?" says the parasite, in Antiphseus, " here I am,
an Antseus. If you want a door forced, I have a head
like a ram to do it ; and I can scale a wall like Capaneus.
Telamon was not stronger than my wrist ; and I can
wreathe into the ear of beauty like smoke." Some of
these Bobadils are even said to have ventured into battle,
and to have especially distinguished themselves in the
Commissariat department !

Others boasted of their powers of fasting, — always pro-
vided good pay assured them of compensating banquets
at the end of their service. " I can live on as little as
Tithymallus," says one ; and the individual in question is
said to have supported life on eight lupines a day, — a
hint to Poor-Law Commissioners. Another makes a
merit of being as thin as Philippides, who, like Hood's
Mend, was so thin, that, when he stood side-ways, you
could not see him ! The merits of a third are summed
up by him in saying, that he can live on water, like a
frog; on vegetables, like a caterpillar; can go without
bathing, Hke Dirtiness herself, if there be such a deity ;
can live in winter with no roof but the sky, like a bird ;
can support heat, and sing beneath a noon-day smi, like a
grasshopper ; do without oil, like the dust ; walk bare-
footed from break of day, like the crane ; and keep wide
awake all night, like the owl.

Of such a profession the parasite was proud, and even
declared that its origin was divine ; and that Jupiter
Amicalis {Zebs S tplhtos) was its patron saint ! As Jove
entered where he chose, ate and drank of what most took

222 TABLE TEAITS.

his fancy, and, after creating an atmospliere of enjoyment,
retired without having any thing to pay ; just so, it was
argued, was it with the parasite. In Attica, parasites
were admitted to the commemorative banquets that fol-
lowed the sacrifices to Hercules ; proof enough that they
were accounted as heing of the same kidney as heroes.
In later times came degenerate men and manners ; and
then, instead of honourahle men sitting with gods and
heroes, the office of parasite was so degraded, that none
but the hungry wits exercised it. Flattery to mortals
then took the place of praise to gods. The pai-asite was
ready to laud every act of the master of the feast, —

■ laudare 'paratus

Si bene rmtavit, si rectum minxit amicus"

aad to eulogize a great number of other acts besides, as
may be found noted by those who are very curious, and
not over-nice, ia the fragments of Diodorus of Sinope.

The fellows were witty, too, however degraded. When
Chcerephon had, uninvited, sHpped into a vacant position
at a wedding-dinner, the gynseconomes, as inspectors of
the feast, counting the guests, came upon him last, and
said, " You are the thirty-first : it is against the law ;
you must withdraw." " I do not dispute the law," said
the parasite, " but I object to your manner of counting.
Begin the numbering by me, and your conclusions will
be indisputable."

The parasite, Philoxenus, happened to be supping with
a host who gave his guests nothing but black bread.
" This is not a loaf, but a spectre," whispered the pro-
fessional wit : " if we eat any more of it, we shall soon
be in the shades."

There was more wit in Bithys, the parasite of the
avaricious King Lysimachus, who one day, at dinner,
flung a wooden scorpion at the flatterer. The latter

THE PAEASITE. 223

affected great fright, but afterwards remarked, "I will,
in my turn, terrify you, O King j be good enough to give
me a talent."

Clisoplius, another of this strange brotherhood, either
fooled or flattered King Philip to the very top of his
bent. The King having lost an eye, Clisophus always
sat down to dinner in his presence with a bandage over
one of his own ; and when the Monarch limped, from a
wound in the leg, Clisophus went "halting at his side ;"
and if, by chance, an ill odour affected the royal nostrils,
Clisophus wore, all day long, a grimace upon his features,
as if he were sick with disgust. However absurd this
may appear, the parasites of Lotus XIV. flattered him ^s
grossly as the original practioners did the early and
heathen Kings. People shaved their heads and wore
periwigs, because the Monarch, having little hair of his
own, wore long locks cropped from other heads. So,
when once at dinner he complained of having lost his
teeth, a young flatterer who sat next him. swore, with a
broad smUe which displayed his own incisors, that nobody
had teeth now-a-days. And again, when the King, on
his seventieth birth-day, inquired the age of a person
from whom he had received a petition, the reply was,
that the person was of everybody's age, — about three-
score and ten. Nay, the Court preachers flattered the
Sovereign quite as coarsely as the mere courtiers, and
would not have received invitations to dinner, if they had
not done so. "My brethren," said one of these, "all
men must die ;" and at that very moment he perceived
the eye of the King glaring uneasily upon him : — " that
is to say, Sire, almost all men!" and the complaisant
preaeher was at the royal table that day. The same
parasitical spirit prevailed at the English Court, especially
when bolster neckcloths were worn, simply because the
King was compelled to wear one, in consequence of a

224 TABXB TEAITS.

disease in tlie glands of the neck. But, to translate the
sentiment of the French poet, —

"IVom royal example slaves have never slirunk :
When Auguste tippled, Poland soon got drunk.
When the great Monarch breathed the air of love.
Hey, presto, pass ! Paris was Venns' grove !
But tum'd a Churchman and devout, alas !
The courtiers ran and beat their breasts at mass."

It is said by ancient writers that the species of flattery
which Clisophus paid Philip, was ohligatory on all the
guests and officials in the ancient royal Courts of Aiahia.
There, if the King suffered in any member, every courtier
was bound to be in pain in the same limb. This species
of flattery was, in fact, a conclusion logically arrived at ;
for the Arab lawgivers said that it would be absurd in
the courtiers to vie with one another for the honour of
being buried alive with the King defunct, if they did not
suffer with him in all his bodily pains when living.

The Celtic King of the Sotians maintained a body of
men who were called the " Eucholimes," or the " Death
Volunteers." They amounted to six hundred men ; they
were lodged, clothed, and tended Kke the King, with
whom they daily sat at ;neat ; but they were also bound
to die with their master ; and it is alleged that the
chance was eagerly incurred, and that no man ever failed,
when called upon by the King's decease, to accompany
His Majesty on a visit to his royal cousin, Orcus.

But your regular parasite preferred to Uve and flatter
living Monarchs. " See," said Niceas, when he saw
Alexander troubled by a fly that stung him, " there is
one that will be King over aU flies ; for he has imbibed
the blood of him who is King over all men." The flat-
tery was not more delicate which Chirisophus once paid
at dinner to Dionysius the Tyrant. Chirisophus, seeing
the King smile at the other end of the table, burst into

THE PAEASITB. 225

a roar of laughter. The King asked, "Wherefore?"
seeing that the parasite could not have heard the joke.
"True," said Chirisophus ; "hut I saw that Your
Majesty had heard something worth laughing at, and I
laughed in sympathy." This species of parasite is not
uncommon ia English houses ; hut perhaps they do their
office more refinedly than Chirisophus.

The flatterers of the younger Dionysius were far more
disgusting iu their adulation. They were simply ahsurd,
when they pretended to he short-sighted, like him, and
to he imahle to see a dish, unless they thrust their
noses into it. But they were filthy followers when they
offered their faces for the King to "void his rhevun"
upon, and even went to extremes of nastiness at which
human nature shudders, hut at which Dionysius smiled.
And yet Dionysius was hailed hy some of them as a god.
It was the custom, we are told, in Sicily, for every iadi-
vidual to make sacrifices, iu his own house, hefore the
figures of the nymphs, to get devoutly drunk before the
altar, and to dance round it as long as the pious devotee
could keep upon his legs. It was accounted as an
exquisite piece of flattery in Damocles, the parasite, that
he refused to perform such service hefore inanimate
deities, while he went through the whole duty before
Dionysius as his god. The Athenians, it wiU be remem-
bered, were horror-stricken at such impious laudation as
this. They fined Demades ten talents for having pro-
posed to award divine honours to Alexander ; and Tima-
goras, whom they had sent as Ambassador to the King of
Persia, they put to death for compromising the Athenian
dignity by prostrating himself before that King. And,
indeed, let us do justice to Alexander himself He had
more than misgiving touching his own alleged divinity.
He had once^" his custom ia the afternoon " — eaten and
drunk so enormously, that in the evening he was forced

Q

226 TABIiB TEATTS.

to a necessity which compels vei^ mortal people, — ^tate
physic; He made as many contortions, on swallowing it,
as a refractory child ; and Philarches, his parasite,
remarked, with a rascally hypocritical smile, " Ah J what
must he the sufferings of mortal man under such niedi-
ciae, if you, who are a divinity, feel it so much!" The
idea of a deity drawing health out of an apothecary's
phial, was too much even for Alexander, who declined
to accept the apotheosis, and called Philarches an ass.

But Philarches was only giving the King a taste of
the parasite's professional craft. The noble Mcostratus
of Argos quite as impiously flattered the Sovereign of
Persia, when, for the sake of currying favour with that
majestic, harharian, he every night, in his own house,
prepared a solemn supper, richly provided, and offered t6

the genius of the Kingj (tS Bai^tow rod Baa-tKeas,) for no

hetter reason than that he had learned that such was the
custom in Persia. Whether he profited or not by this
delicate attention, Theopompus does not inform us.

The Anactes or Princes of the royal family of Salamis
maintained two distinct families, in whom, if I understand
Athenseus rightly, the office of flatterer (and of spy, I
may add) was hereditary. These were the Gerginoi and
the Promalangai. The former did the dirty work of
circulating among the people, worming themselves into
their confidence, getting invited to their tables, and then
reporting to the Promalangai all they had heard. The
last-named took such portions of the report as were worth
communicating to the Anactes, with whom they sat at
table, where such a dish of scandal was daUy served as
would puzzle the social spies of Paris to set before their
lord.

But the -profession was not accounted vile ; and the
professors themselves gloried in their vocation. They
extoUed the easiness of their life, compared, for instance.

THE PAHASITE. 227

with that of the painter, or the labourer, or, in fact, with
that of any other individual but those of their own guild.
"Truly," says one, in a fragment of Antiphanes, "since
the most important business in life is to play, laugh,
trifle, and drink, I should like to know where you would
find a condition more agreeable than ours."

Once, and once only, a faction of parasites contrived to
get possession of a kingdom ; and the dinners they gave,
and the government they maintained, are matters to
which description can hardly do justice. The faction in
question was headed by, and almost solely consisted of,
three men in Erythra, who stood, in regard to Cnopus,
the King, as " adorers and flatterers" (irp6ffKvpes koI KtSAu/ces).
They murdered their Sovereign, and, by a colip-d'etat,
possessed themselves of his authority. Their names were
Ortyges, Irus, and Echarus ; and they ruled with a triple
rod of iron, held in very effeminate fingers. They
silenced all opponents by slaying them ; and, when no
one dared utter a breath against them, they vaunted their
universal popularity. They administered a ferociously
absiu-d sort of justice at the gates of Erythra, where
they sat decked out in purple and gold. They were
sandaled like women, wore ornaments only suitable to
females, and sat down to dinner in diadems that dazzled
the company.

The guests were once free citizens, who were now com-
pelled to bear the litters of their parvenit masters, to
cleanse the streets, and then, by way of contrast, to
attend the banquet of the Triumvirs, with their wives
and daughters. If they objected to drag these latter to
the scene of splendid infamy, the objection was only made
at the price of death. The unhappy women were nothing
the safer from insult by the decease of their natural pro-
tectors ; and the scenes at the palace were such as only
the uncleanest of demons could rejoice in. If the autho-
Q 2

228 TABLE TEAtTS.

rities had reason to be grave, tlie whole city was com-
pelled to affect sorrow ; and duly-appointed officers went
round, with, hard-thonged whips, to scourge a sense of
"decent horror" into the countenances of the bewildered
inhabitants. Things at last reached such a pitch of
extravagant atrocity, that the people took heart of grace,
screwed up their coxu'age by Chian wine, and swept their
oppressors into Hades ; — and, for years afterwards, com-
memorative banquets celebrated the restoration of the
people from the oppression of the parasites.

I would recommend those who would see the parasite
in action, to study the comedies of Plautus, wherein he
figures as necessarily as the impertinent valet in a Spanish
comedy.' Plautus calls the parasites poetcs, as being
given to lying ; and it is singular that the Gauls called
their poets "parasites," as being fond of good living, and
not being always in a condition to procure it. They had
their "duU season:" it was when the wealthy were at
their villas ; at whiph time the parasites dined upon
nothing, in town, with good " Duke Hiimphrey." When
the city was again resorted to by the rich, then the para-
site might sometimes be seen purchasing, by order of his
patron, the provisions for the evening feast. We find
one of these gentry, in Plautus, boasting that he knows a
story that will be worth thirty dinners to him. Before
the era of printing, the parasite, with his jests and histo-
ries, was a sort of living Circulating Library. Saturion
(another of Plautus's pictures of the parasite) is at peace
with himself, because, as he says, he can provide for his
daughter by bequeathing to her his rich collection of
jokes and dinner-stories. " They are all sparkling Attic,"
he says ; " and there is not a dull Sicilian anecdote
among them."

If the race were, in some sense of the word, "literary,"
they were not at all in love with science, or the improve-

THE TAEASITB. 229

ments wrougM by its application. Witness the bitterness
with wbich Plautus makes one denounce the sun-dial,
then of recent introduction. Before that tell-tale
appeared, dinners used to be served when people were
hungry ; but now even hungry people wait for the
appointed hour. In short, throughout Ufe, they worked
but for the sake of the banquet and wine-pot ; and,
even after death, they longed for Hbations, as appears in
the epitaph on the parasite, Sergius of Pola, who is made
to say, from the grave, —

'"Si urbani perhiberi vuttis
Arenii meo cineri^
Cantharo piaculum mnarium. festinaie"

" If you 've any regard for this corpse here of mine,
Be so good as to damp it with hogsheads of wine."

Finally, these diners-out by profession were essentially
selfish; and the fire of their attachment blazed up, or
died away, according to that in the kitchen of the
Amphitryon by whom they were maintained.

A good specimen of the parasite of the last century
may be found in the Captain Cormorant of Anstey's
"Bath Guide;" but the race is by no means extinct,
though the individual be more rarely met with ; and, be
it said as their due, they execute their office with some-
thing more of decency than did their ancient predecessors.
Modem flattery, like modem oils, is "double refined."
Let us see if we can trace the course of this refinement
through the Table Traits of Utopia and the Golden Age.

THE TABLES OE UTOPIA AND THE
GOLDEN AGE.

The good Archbisliop Fenelon, in Ms " Voyage dans
Vile des JPlaisirs" cites some charming examples of the
pleasant way in which people lived in the Utopian Land
of Coeagne, which he describes from imagination, and
where the laws were characterized by more good sense
than distinguishes the legislation of the Utopian authori-
ties of More.

The " Voyage" of Fenelon was probably founded on a
fragment of Teleclides, who has narrated, in rattling
Greek metres, how the citizens of the world lived and
banqueted in the golden age of its lusty youth. The
poet puts the description into the mouth of Saturn, who
says, " I wiU ^ell you what sort of life I vouchsafed to
men in the early ages of creation. In the first place,
peace reigned universally, and was as common as the
water you wash your hands with. Fear and disease were
entirely unknown ; and the earth provided spontaneously
for every human want. The rivers then poured cataracts
of wine into the valleys ; and cakes disputed with loaves
to get into the mouth of man, as he walked abroad, sup-
plicating to be eaten, and giving assurances of excellent
flavour and quality. The tables were covered with fish
which floated into the kitchens, and courteously put
themselves to roast. By the sides of the couches rolled
streams of sauces, bearing with them joints of ready-
roasted meat ; while rivulets full of ragouts wer neeai the

THE TABLES. OF TTOPIA AND THE GOLDEN A&E. 231

guests, wlio dipped in, and took therefrom, according to
their fancy. Every one could eat of what he pleased;
and aU that he ate was sweet and succulent. There were
countless pomegranate-seeds for seasoning; little fdtts
ajid grives, done to a turn, insinuated themselves into the
mouths of the hanqueters ; and tarts got smashed in try-
ing to force their way into the throat. The children
played with sow-paps and other delicacies as they would
with toys ; and the men were gigantic in height, and
ohese in figure."

The ahove is a specimen of the classical idea of that
delicious —

■ " Land of Cocagne,

That Elysium of all that is frland and nice.

Where for hail they have bon-bons, and claret for rain,
And the skaters, in ■lyinter, show off on cream-ice."

It is a theme with which modem poets have been as fond
of dealing as Teleclides and others of the tuneful children
of song, in the early period when young Time counted his
birth-days by the sun. It has been well treated by
Beranger, who thus describes, through my imperfect
translation, his own impressions of

A JOrENET TO THE LAND 01' COOAGNE.
Ho, friends, every one !
Let us up, and be gone ; —
To where care is not known.

Let us hasten away !
Yes ; fired with champagne,
I reel o'er the plain.
And see dear Cocagne

In its sunny array.

O I land fdl of glee,—
Here long may I be,
And laugh merriUe

At Fate's changeable way.

232 TABLE TEAITS.

For here — ^wtat a treat ! —
I may love, drink, and eat.
And — ^this makes it more sweet-
There is nothing to pay 1

My appetite 's great.
And I see the huge gate
Of a tower of state ^

At my elbow, handy :
The tower is a pie ; —
And tall guards, standing by.
Carry spears ten feet high.

All in sugar-candy.

Ah ! banquet of fan.
It will please ev'ry one :
Look, there is not a gun

But of sugar is made !
See the paintings, how grand
And the statues, they stand,
AJl wrought by the hand

Out of sweet marmalade.

Here the people repair

In gay crowds to the square,

Where the jests of a fair

With loud merriment shine ;
■Where the fountains -so gay
Not with water do play.
But are sparkling away

With rich, rosy, old wine 1

Here, the baldng 's begun ;
There, the baking is done ; —
See the folks how they run.

With beef, mutton, and veal.
Aud the eaters think fit.
That the man who lacks wit,
ShaU be made a " turnspit,"

And be bound to the wheel.

THE TAOJLES Or TITOPIA AND THE GOLDEIT AGE. 233

To the palace I haste,
With two Falstaffs I feast,
(Twenty stone weighs the least,)

And with them hob and nob.
And here, too, I 've found.
Where such good things abound^
Shy Yenus quite round.

And young Cupid a squab.

No sadness of brow.
No pedantic vain show.
No pompous state-bow.

Can be ever allow'd : —
But with feasting and song
We carry night on,
Drink deep and drink long.

And toast beauty aloud.

Now, good-natmed lasses.
To the music of glasses.
As the sweet dessert passes.

Let 's laugh the time by.
Let fools sigh and snuffle.
And merriment mufHe,
But yon, dears, shajl ruffle

Our pro — priety.

So, in this joyous way,
With fresh loves ev'ry day.
And with no debts to pay,

We scamper time o'er ;
While between driukiug deep.
And hght visions in sleep.
Our young years will creep

To a hundred or more.

Yes, dear old Cocagne,
It 's with thee, — free from pain, —
But who checks my strain.
In an accent so shrill ?

234 TABLE TEAITS.

For, while singing, I tliougM, —
But, my friends, we are caught,—
'T is the waiter who 's brought
His confounded long bill.

The fairy-land of Cocagne is said to derive its name
from the Latin, coguere, "to cook." Duchat says, that its
flocks and herds present themselves perfectly cooked, and
that the larks descend from the skies ready roasted. For
it is there alone —

" Where so ready all nature its cookery yields,
Maccaroni au parmesan grows in the fields ;
Little birds fly about with the true pheasant taint.
And the geese are all born with a liver complaint."

The Utopian hanquets, which are described by More,
present an imaginary view of society in another extreme.
The learned Chancellor, amid much' invented nonsense,
pictures the manners of the citizens of Amaurat after the
fashion of those of Crete and Lacedsemonia, especially
vdth regard to their common halls for their repasts, —
a fashion, by the way, which was partially followed in the
club-rooms of Attica. Others of the author's ideas have
been reahzed since he wrote; and, in this respect, his
Utopia may be said to have done good service ; but there
is a woful residue of nonsense, nevertheless, which is
nei,ther amusing nor useful.

Sir Thomas describes the citizens of Amaurat as pos-
sessing provision markets abundantly supplied with herbs,
fruits, bread, fowl, and cattle. The latter were previously
slain in extra-mural slaughter-houses, well furnished with
running water, for washing away the filth after killing. The
butchers were slaves, (for serfdom " was a peculiar insti-
tution" of this happy republic,) the free citizens not being
permitted to kill animals, lest such pursuit should harden
their singularly tender characters. "In every street,"

THE TABLES OE TTTOPIA AUD THE GOLDEN AGE, 235

we are told by the author, " there are great halls that lie
at an equal distance from one another, and are marked by
peeuliair names. The Syphogrants dwell in those, that
are set over thirty families, fifteen lying on one side of it,
and as many on the other. In these they do all meet
and eat. The stawards of every one of them come to the
market-place at an appointed hour, and, according to the
number of those that belong to their hall, they carry
home provisions. But they take more care of their sick
than of any others After the steward of the hos-
pitals has taken for them whatever the physician does
prescribe for them, at the market-place, then the best
things that remain are distributed equally among the
halls, in proportion to their numbers ; only, in the first
place, they serve the Prince, the Chief Priest, the Trani-
bors, and Ambassadors, and strangers, if there are any,
which, indeed, falls out but seldom, and for whom there
are houses weU-fumished, particularly appointed, when
they come among them. At the hours of dinner and
supper, the Syphogranty, being called together by sound of
trumpet, meets and eats together, except only such as are
in the hospitals, or lie sick at home. Yet, after the halls
are served, no man is hindered to carry provisions home
from the market-place, for they know none does that but
for some good reason ; for, though any that wUl may eat at
home, yet none does it willingly, since it is both an indecent
and foolish thing for any to give themselves the trouble to
make ready an ill dinner at home, when there is a much
more plentiful one made ready for him so near at hand. All
the imeasy and sordid services about these halls are done by
their slaves ; but the dressing and cooking of their meat,
and ordering of their tables, belong only to the women,
which goes roimd all the women of every family by turns.
They sit at three or more tables, according to their num-
bers ; the men sit towards the wall, and the women sit on

236 TABLE TEAITS.

the otter side, that if any of them fall suddenly ill, which
is ordinary to those expecting to be mothers, she may,
without disturbing the rest, rise and go to the nurses'
room, who are there with the suckling children, where
there is always fire and clean water at hand, and some
cradles in which they may lay the young children," &c.
But, to return from this public nursery to the pubHe
dining-hall, "aJl the children under five years of age
dined with the nurses : the rest of the younger sort of
both sexes, till they are fit for marriage, do either serve
those that sit at table ; or, if they are not strong enough
for that, they stand by them in great silence, and eat
that which is given them by those that sit at table, nor
have they any other formahty of dining." The whole
formaUty was bad enough, and that last-mentioned was
a Doric custom prevailing in Crete. As to the personal
arrangements at these Utopian tables, the infelicitous
guests stood much upon their order of precedence : the
Syphogrant and his wife, the gnadige T'rau Syphograntinn,
presided at the centre of the cross table, at the upper end
of the hall. After the Magistrates and their mates, came
the Priests and their ladies, — for More placed the Church
below the State, and hinted that celibacy in the Clergy
was not to be commended. Below these, groups of the
young and gay were placed, between flanking companies
of the aged and grave, to spoil thteir mirth, and improve
their manners ; and this Spartan custom was occasionally
imitated at Athenian feasts, albeit the Athenians looked
with something like contempt upon the institutions of
old Laconia. The best dishes were placed before the
oldest men, and the latter gave of the dainty bits to the
young, if these merited such favour by their behaviour ;
if not, they took their chance of what the older gour-
mands might leave, or were obliged to be content with
the plainer fare allotted to them.

THE TABLES OE UTOPIA AlfD THE GOLDEN AGE. 237

During this delectaUe process, the young could not
have offended by their gaiety, nor the old have improved
them by conversation, seeing that a reader was appointed,
to assist digestion by reading aloud an Essay on Moral-
ity. The Eomans had the same office performed at some
of their meals by learned slaves. More expressly says
that the Utopian lecture was so short, that it was neither
tedious nor uneasy to those that heard it ; and that after
it, the elders not only wagged their beards by " pleasant
enlargements," but encouraged the young to foUow them
in the same track. This must have been after the supper,
when it was the law of Utopia, not to "run a mile," but
to' "rest awhile." The dinners were dispatched quickly,
because work awaited the diners,' while the supper-eaters
had nothing to do afterwards but sleep. This must have
been all terribly dreajy, if it had ever been realized. The
only pleasant feature in More's Utopian banquets is, that
wherein he says that there was always music at supper,
and fruit served up after meat, (which, by the way, was a
cruel trial for the digestive powers,) and that as the repast
proceeded, " some bum perfumes, and sprinkle about
sweet ointments, and sweet waters ; and they are wanting
in nothing that may cheer up their spirits ; for they give
themselves a large allowance in that way, and indulge
themselves in all such pleasures as are attended with no
inconvenience. Thus," he adds, " do they that are in
towns eat together ; but in the country, where they live
at a greater distance, every one eats at home, and no
family wants any necessary sort of provision; for it is
from them that provisions are sent in to them that live
in the towns."

I have noticed above the slave-readers at Eoman din-
ners. These were seldom bom slaves ; indeed, of bom
slaves, among the Greeks or Eomans, the numbers were
fewer than might be reasonably imagined. Those who

238 _ TABLE TEAITS.

became authors or teachers, were the distinguished and
illustrious of their class ; and it was they who reheved.
the tedium of a Roman repast by reading livelier sallies
than Essays on Morality, like the Utopians. If their
rank in humanity was low, their ability secured for them
many privileges which even freedmen did not enjoy. Of
this rank of reading slaves was Andronicus, the inventor
of dramatic poetry. Plautus, the witty, but coarse, play-
writer, miller, and Jack of aU trades, was a slave.
Terence was also a dramatist, and not only a slave, but
a Negro slave. .3]sop the fabulist, Phaedrus, his imi-
tator, and the moral philosopher Epictetus, were slaves.
The latter, who was as low in condition among bondsmen
as he was exalted in his character of teacher of mankind,
was the slave of one who had been a slave, — a depth of
degradation than which there can be none deeper. But
his mission was a great one ; for he appears to me to have
been an instrument employed to prepare men's minds
for a change from the vices of Paganism to the virtues of
Christianity. His writings are as stepping-stones across
the dark and rapid stream dividing error from truth.
They are admirably calculated to enable men to go for-
ward ; not only to induce them to make the first step out
of infideUty; but, having made it, rather to make a
second in advance towards Christ, than go backward
again in the direction of the dazzling unintelligibUities
of the Capitoline Jove.

From slavery, it' we turn our eyes towards mere poverty,
the next condition to it, we shall see that the poor men
characteristically paid their addresses to poetry; — and
they were the "lions" at the dinners and assemblies of
Eome. Such was Horace, who, if he were not in want,
was of inferior descent, his father having been a slave,
and subsequently, on being enfranchised, a tax-gatherer.
Virgil was of equally mean descent on the paternal side ;

THE TABLES OE UTOPIA AlfD THE GOLDEN AGE. 239

but he derived some portioa of nobility from bis mother.
Juvenal, too, was not only poor and a poet, — a condition
that could draw upon it only a serf's contempt, — but he
was, moreover, an exceedingly angry poet. In equal pro-
portion as he was poor, angry, and satirical in poetry, was
Lueian poor, angry, and satirical in prose.

If the dining-out poets were poor, it was much the
same with the philosophers. The proudest walks of phi-
losophy were trodden by Demosthenes, the blacksmith.
Socrates was the ill-featured, but original-minded, son of
a mason and midwife. Epicurus was only rich in a value-
less boast of being descended from Ajax ; and Isocrates,
whose father manufactured the musical ancestry from
which are descended the modern families of piancJ-forte
and fiddle, was also one of the immortal race of intellec-
tual giants Of other writers we may remark, that

Quintus Curtius, whose "Alexander the Great" is the
first historical romance that ever was written, and con-
tains the best description of a Babylonian banquet that
ever was painted in words, was of an ignoble family.
Celsus was, at least, not a Eoman citizen, though resident
at Home; and Plutarch was just "respectable," and
nothing more ; — though to be worthy of respect, as the
term imphes, is as high rank as a man need sigh for.

But though art and science, though the Nine Sisters
who made Parnassus vocal, were thus worshipped by the
slave and his cousin the beggar; wealth was by no
means a synonymous term for either sloth or incapacity.
The opulent Lucretius, who believed nothing; the two
Plinies, the soul of one of whom, "with a difference,"
entered into Horace Walpole, and who wrote about his slave
Zozimus, as Walpole does of his favourite servants ; the
tender and chivalrous Tibullus, — a Latin Sir PhUip Sid-
ney; the profligate Sophocles; ^schylus, the bottle-
drainer; ajad the lofty Euripides: all these mounted

2i0 TABLE TEAITS.

Pegasus witli golden spurs, and gave glorious dinners
to guests with whom they could contend in the battle of
braias. Some, like Martial, got their mouths fiUed with
the sugar-candy of imperial recompence. Csesar, the
Commentator, was the descendant of the Sabiae Xings,
and the foimder of an empire. In Plato we see the
double condition of aristocrat and slave. Prom the latter
condition he was rescued by his noble friends at the cost
of three thousand drachmas ; more fortunate in this than
Diogenes, who, being friendless, was left to hug his irons,
and teach his master's sons to love virtue and liberty.

And the mention of the name of Plato reminds me of
a more modern philosopher, who did not lack reverence
for Mm, — I mean Bacon, — and Bacon naturally brings
me from my digression to the subject of " Table Traits"
ia imaginary Utopias. This philosopher, in his "^TTew
Atlantis," is even more infelicitous than More, both in
the framing of his fiction, and the extracting from it of a
moral. The table laws spoken of in Solomon's house,
have more of a joUy aspect than those drawn by Sir
Thomas More. For instance, " I will not hold you long
with recounting of our brewhouses, bakehouses, and
kitchens, where are made divers drinks, breads, and meats,
rare and of special eifects. Wines we have of grapes,
and drinks of other juice, of fruits, of grains, and of roots ;
and of mixtures with honey, sugar, manna, and fruits
dried and decocted ; also of the tears and woundings
of trees, and of the pulp of canes : and these drinks are
of several ages, some to the age at least of forty years.
We have drinks also brewed of several herbs or roots,
and spices, yea, with several fleshes and wine-meats,
whereof some of the drinks are such as they are in effect
meat and drink both. So that divers, especially in age,
do desire to live with them, with little or no meat or
bread ; and, above all, we strive to have drinks of extreme

THE TABLES OE UTOPIA AND THE GOLDEN AGE. 241

thin parts, to insinuate into the body, and yet without
all hiting sharpness, or fretting; insomuch as some of
them put upon the back of your hand wiH, with a little'
stay, pass through to the palm, and yet taste mild to the
mouth. We have also waters which we ripen in that
fashion as they become nourishing, so that they are,
indeed, excellent drink, and many will use no other.
Breads we have of several grains, roots, and kernels, yea,
and some of flesh and fish dried, with divers kinds of
leavenings and seasonings, so that some do extremely
move appetites ; some do nourish so as divers do live of
them without any other meat, who live very long. So,
for meats, we have some of them so beaten and made
tender and mortified, yet without all corrupting, as a
weak heat of the stomach wiU turn them into good
chylus, as well as a strong heat would meat otherwise
prepared. We have some meats, also, and breads and
drinks which, taken by some, enable them to fast long
after; and some other that wiU make the very flesh of
men's bodies sensibly more hard and tough, and their
strength far greater than otherwise it would be."

In this way could philosophy disport itself, and not
with much attendant profit, beyond amusement. Before
I conclude this section, I may notice a more graceful
fiction touching ban(p.ets, than any thing to be met with
among the philosophers. The inhabitants of the coast of
Malabar believe that the double cocoas of the Moluccas,
annually thrown on their shore by the waves, and joy-
fully welcomed by the expecting inhabitants, are the
produce of a palm-tree growing in the fathomless recesses
of the ocean ; and that they arise from among coral-groves
endowed with supernatural qualities and attributes. For
a detailed account of this supposed phsenomenon, and a
very pretty illustration of the theory of seeds transported
by winds and currents, I refer all curious inquirers to the

242 TABLE TEAITS.

"Aimals of My Village," by a Lady. In the mean time,
I venture to put into verse, the supposed scene which
occurs at the annual cocoa-banquet in Malabar : — ■

'Neath the waves of Mincoy grows a magiciil tree.

In the sunless retreat of a dark coral-grove,
Where slumber young sprites, — ^the gay elves of a sea

Flinging back the bright blue of its heaven above.
There they sip the sweet fruit of that palm-tree, and leav

Of its best and its ripest for maidens who stray.
And laugh away time with their lovers at eve.

And sing to those elves of the deep by the way.

O ! to see them at sunset, when down by the shore

Of their own Malabar in gay clusters they stand,
like spirits of hght shedding softness aU o 'er

The broad sea, and its tribute of fruit, from the land !
There troops of young girls, in their light-hearted mirth.
Are laughing at youths who, reclined on the earth.
Drink the white wine of Kishna ; — ^while some are at play,

riinging glances and handsfiiU of roses, in showers.
That their lovers can't tell, as they bend 'ueath the fray,

"Which are falling the fastest, — ^the glances, or flowers.

And then on the sands where these young people meet.

What hushing of songs and suppressing of glee.
As the waves bring in gently, and waft to their feet.

The ripe fruit of the palm that lives under the sea I
There, while, half in earnest, fair Malabar's daughters.
Half play, dip their white, sandal'd feet in the waters.
To catch the ripe cocoas, and run back again.

As the wave washes over their small anklet bells.
There are some, youths and maidens, who, hnk'din a chain.

Like pearls strung, and mix'd, here and there, with sea-shells.
Dash into the flood for the fruit of the palm.

Which they strive for, and, winning, bring joyously out ;
Then lean on their lovers, all panting and warm

With laughter and splashing the waters about.

O, who would not Hke to pass summer away
Amid scenes such as this ? 0, who would not love

With Malabar's daughters, at twilight, to play.
And taste the ripe fruit of that dark coral-grove ?"

THE TABLES OP UTOPIA AND THE GOLDEN AGE. 243

The Malabar palm was not the only tree of its kind
that used to afiford hoUdays and banquetings to the peo-
ple of the East, that is, according to the poets. The
Talipot pahn of Ceylon, or, as the natives somewhat
immusically call it, " lanha dioipa" was, in the olden time
of pleasant fiction, one of this gifted species. But the
banquet it afforded was not of annual occurrence ; for the
tree never flowers till it is fifty years old, and dies imme-
diately after producing its fruit. The Kings of Candy
used to bestow the rich gift of some of its blossoms on the
favoured fair one whose head rested on the bosom of the
Sovereign at the feast, and who lifted the bowl to his
painted Hps. It was, however highly esteemed, not such
a present as Demetrius Pohorcetes made to Lamia, after
that accompHshed courtezan had erected at Sicyon a
portico so superb, that Polemo wrote a book to describe
it ; and poem and portico became the table-talk of all
Greece. The gift of Demetrius was a magnificent purse,
containing two hundred and fifty talents, which, by the
way, he had compelled the reluctant Athenians to contri-
bute ; and this he sent to Lamia, saying, that it was
merely " for soap." The extravagant lady spent it all in
one single, but consuming, fea§t! How pleasantly, by
contrast, shines that other courtezan, Le»na, whose wit
made guests forget that the feast was frugal ; and to
whom the Athenians erected a bronze lioness, without a
tongue, in honour of the lady who heroically had bitten
out her own, that torture might not make her betray the
accompHces of her protector Harmodius, in the murder of
her tyrant Hipparchus !

We have not found much of the refinement we looked
for in these remote periods and banquets. Let us see
what may be discovered in the Table Traits of England
in Early Times.

B 2

TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY
TIMES.

Wheii Diodorus Siculus wrote an account of the
aboriginal inhabitants of Britain, some fifty years before
the Christian era, he described the island as being thickly
inhabited, ruled by many Kings and Princes, and aU
living peaceably together, — ^though with war-chariots and
strong arms, to settle quarrels when they occurred. But
if our ancestors lived peaceably among themselves, they
can hardly be said to have lived comfortably. Their
habitations were of reed, or of wood ; and they gathered
in the harvest by cutting off the ears of corn. These
ears they garnered in subterranean repositories, where-
from they daily culled the ripest grain; and, rudely
dressing the same, had thence their sustenance. Diodorus
says that our primitive sires were far removed from the
cunning and wickedness of the rest of the world ; and
other writers contrast them favourably with the Irish,
who are said to have fed on human flesh, to have had enor-
mous appetites for such food, and to have been given to the
nasty habit of devouring their deceased fathers ; but it is
not uncommon for others, as well as for Irish sons, to
devour, at least, their parents' substance, even at the
present day. The food of an Irish child was certainly
illustrative of character, — we should rather say that
the solemnity of offering the first food to a child was
characteristic. Caius Julius Sohnus, a writer of the first

TAILE TEAITS OP ENGIAITD IN EAELX TIMES. 245

century, says, that "when a Hibernian mother gives
birth to a male chUd, she puts its first food on the point
of her husband's sword, and lightly inserts this foretaste
of meat into the mouth of the infant, on its very tip ; and,
by family vows, desires that it may never die but under
arms." In other words, the relations wished that the
little stranger might never be in want of a row, when
disposed to distinguish the family name !

In the days of Julius Csesar, our stalwart sires sup-
ported their thews and sinews on milTf and flesh, — ^the diet
of a pugilist. We see how much progress was made by the
time of Constantine, — ^the Constantine that was crowned
in Britain, — "when," says a contemporary writer, "the
harvests sufficed alike for the gifts of Ceres and Bacchus,
and the pastures were covered with umumerable multi-
tudes of tame flocks, distended with milk, or laden with
fleeces."

I very much fear, however, notwithstanding the rather
poetical accounts of certain early writers, that our abori-
ginal ancestry were very little superior to the New
Zealanders. They were, perhaps, more imcivilized, and
quite as ignorant ; and their abstinence from the flesh of
hares and poultry, and, in the northern parts of the island,
from fish, bespeaks a race who lacked, at once, industry
and knowledge. Indeed, it is by ho means certain, that
we do not wrong the New Zealanders by suggesting their
possible inferiority to the Britons, seeing that the latter
are very strongly suspected of being guilty of the most
revolting cannibalism.

They were clever enough to brew mead and ale ; but
wine and civilization were brought to them by their ene-
mies, the Romans, — ^invaders whom, for some reasons,
they might have welcomed with a sentiment akin to the
line in Beranger : —

" Fiveni noa amis I nos amis, les ennemk I "

246 TABLE TEAITS.

They ate but twice a day. The last meal was the more
important one. Their seats were skins, or bundles of
hay, flung on the ground. The table was a low stool,
around which British Chiefs sat, and, even in the locaUty
occupied by modem Belgravia, tore their food with teeth
and nails, or hacked at it with a wretched knife, as bad
as any thing of the sort now in common use in Gaul.
In short, they committed a thousand solecisms, the very
idea of which is sufficient to make the Sybarites of
Belgravia very much ashamed of their descent from the
savages of Britain.

It was characteristic of the sort of civilization which
the Anglo-Saxons brought with them to England, that
they introduced the rather vulgar custom of taking four
meals a-day. The custom was| however, one solemnly
observed by the high-feeding nobility of the Saxons.
They ate good soUd joints of flesh-meat, boUed, baked,
or broiled. It would seem, that, in those days, cooks
were not of such an illustrious guild as that which they
subsequently formed. A cook among the Anglo-Saxons
was little mpre accounted of than the calf he cut up into
collops. The cook, in fact, was a slave ; and was as
unceremoniously bequeathed by his owner, in the latter' s
last will and testament, as though the culinary artist had
been a mere kitchen utensil. At Saxon tables, both sexes
sat together, — a custom refined in itself, refining in its
effects, and of such importance, that half-a-dozen nations
claim the honour of being the inventors of that excellent
custom. In Europe, Turkey alone has obstinately refused
to foUow this civilizing example ; and Turkey is falling
to pieces. It may, therefore, be logically proved, that
where table rights are not conceded to the ladies, nations
slowly perish ; and — " serve them right."

It is a mark of Anglo-Saxon delicacy, that table-cloths
were features at Anglo-Saxon feasts; but, as the long

TABLE TEAITS OF ENGLAND IN EAELT TIMES. 247

ends were -used in place of napkins, the delicacy would be
of a somewliat dirty hue, if the cloth were made to serve
at a second feast. There was a rude sort of display upon
the board; but the order of service was of a quality
that would strike the " Jeameses " of the age of Victoria
with inexpressible disgust. The meat was never " dished,"
and "covers" were as yet unknown. The attendants
brought the viands into the dining hall on the spits,
knelt to each guest, presented the spit to his considera-
tion ; and, the guest having helped himself, the attendant
went through the sanie ceremony with the next guest.
Hard drinking followed upon these same ceremonies ; and
even the monasteries were not exempt from the sins of
• gluttony and drunkenness. Notwithstanding these bad
habits, the Anglo-Saxons were a cleanly people. The
warm bath was in general use. Water, for hands and
feet, was brought to every stranger on entering a house
whereia he was about to tarry and feed ; and, it is said
that one of the severest penances of the Church was the
temporary denial of the bath, and of cutting the hair and
nails.

With the Normans came greater grandeur and increased
discomfort. They neither knew nor tolerated the use of
table-eloths or plain steel forks ; but their biU of fare
showed more variety and costliness than the Saxons cared
for. Their cookery was such an improvement on that of
their predecessors in the island, that Norman French, and
Norman dishes, flung the Saxon tongue and table into the
annihilating position of "vulgarity." The art was so
much esteemed, that Monarchs even granted estates, on
condition that the holder thereof should, through his
cook, prepare a certain dish at stated periods, and set it
before the King. It was imder the Normans that the
boar's head had regal honours paid it ; and its progress
from the kitchen to the banquet was under escort of a

248 TABLE TEAIT3.

guard, and behind the deafening salutes of puffy-cheeked
trumpeters. The crane was then what the goose is now,
— highly esteemed ; yet labouring under the shadow of a
suspicion of being " common." The peacock, on the
other hand, was only seen, tail and all, at the tables ot
the wealthy. Their beverage was of a very bilious char
racter, — spicy and cordialed ; namely, hippocras, piment,
morat, and mead. The drink of the humbler classes
partook of a more choleraic quaUty. It consisted of cider,
perry, and ale. The Norman maxim for good living and
plenty of it, was to " rise at five, dine at nine, sup at five,
and bed at nine, if you'd live to a hundred all but one."
Dinner at nine is, however, a contradiction of terms ; for
dinner, as I have said, is the abbreviation of Modeme heme,
or "ten o'clock," the time at which aU people sat down
to a solid repast in the days of the first Williams.

In the two following centuries, cooks and Kingr
launched into far greater magnificence than had ever,
hitherto, been seen ia England. Eichard II. entertained
ten thousand guests daily at his numerous tables ; and
the exceedingly fast Earl of Leicester, grandson of the
equally slow Henry III., is said to have spent twenty-two
thousand pounds of silver in one year, in eating, alone
His thirsty household retainers drank no less than three
hundred and seventy-one pipes of wine, in the same space
of time. At great banquets, the dishes were reckoned by
thousands, and Kings in vain dictated decrees denouncing
such diuners ; for cooks and cowovoes considered them with
contempt. As a show of moderation, the old four meals
arday were now reduced to two ; but these two were
connected by such a savoury chain of intermeats and
refections, that the board was spread all day long, and
guests were never weary : —

" Their life like tlie life of the Germans would be,
2)» lit i, la table; de la table au lit''

TABLE TEAITS OF EN&LAND IN EABIT TIMES. 249

To have things "brennying like wild-fire," was the cha*
racteristie of the cookery of the period. Confectionery of
the richest sorts were the lighter materials of meals,
which were abundantly irrigated by hippocras, piment,
or claret, or the simpler and purer wines of France, Spain,
Syria, and Greece. Thus might a host say : —

" Ye shall have runrney and malespine,
Both ypocrasse and vernage wine ;
Moimtrasse and wyne of Greke,
Both algrade and despice eke,
Antioche and bastaide,
Pyment also and gamarde,
Wyne of Greke and muscadell.
Both clary, pyment, and Eochelle."

Ricobaldi of Ferrara, writing, about the year 1300, of
the Italian social condition in the age of Frederick II.,
illustrates the former rudeness of the Italian manners, by
showing that in those days " a man and his wife ate off
the same plate. There were no wooden-handled knives,
nor more than one or two drinking-cups in a house.
Candles of wax or taHow were unknown ; a servant held a
torch during supper. The clothes of men were of leather
unlined ; scarcely any gold or silver was seen on their
dress. The common people ate flesh but three times a
week, and kept their cold meat for supper. Many did
not drink wine in summer. A small stock of corn seemed
riches. The portions of women were small ; their dress,
even after marriage, was simple. The pride of men was
to be well provided with arms and horses ; that of the
nobility to have lofty towers, of which all the cities in
Italy were full. But now, frugality has been changed for
sumptuousness ; every thing exquisite is sought after in
dress, — gold, sUver, pearls, sUks, and rich furs."

The Household-Book of the Earl of Northumberland
admirably Ulustrates the iaterior and table life of the

250 TABLE TEAITS.

greater nobles of tte period of Henry VII. In this well-
known and well-kept record, the family is described as
consisting of one hundred and sixty-six persons, masters
and servants ; and hospitable reckoning is allowed for
more than half a hundred strangers who are expected daily
to partake of the Earl's good cheer. The cost for each indi-
vidual, for board and fuel, is settled at twopence halfpenny
daily, about one and sixpence of our present money, if we
take into account the relative value of money, and the ,
relative prices of provisions. The Earl allots for his
annual expenditure £1178. I7s. 8d. More than two-
thirds of this is consumed in meat, drink, and firing;
namely, £797. lis. 2d. The book carefully states the
ntimber of pieces which the carver is to cut out of each
quarter of beef, mutton, veal, pork, nay, even stock-fish
and salmon ; and supervising clerks were appointed to see
that this was carried into effect, and to make due entry of
the same in their registers. An absent servant's share is to
be accounted for, and not to be divided among the rest. The
absentee, if he be on "my Lord's " business, received 8d.
per day, board wages, in winter, and 5d. in summer ;
with 2d. additional daily for the keep of a horse. A
little more than a quarter of wheat, estimated at 5s. 8d.
per quarter^ is allowed for every month throughout the
year ; with this, 250 quarters of malt, at 4s., (two hogs-
heads to the quarter,) and producing about a bottle and a
third of intermediate beer to each person, does not say
much for the liberality of the Lord, though it may for the
temperance of his retainers. One hundred and nine fat
beeves are to be bought at All-Hallow's Tide, at 13s. M.
each ; a couple of dozen of lean kine, at 8s., are to be
bought at St. Helen's, to be fattened for service between
Midsummer and Michaelmas. All the rest of the year,
nine weary months, the family was on salted provisions,
to aid the digestion of which, the Earl, so chary of his

TABLE TEAITS OF ENGLAND IN EAELT TIMES. 251

liquor, allows the profuse aid of one hundred and sixty -
six gallons of mustard. 647 sheep at Is. 8d., to be eaten
salted between Lammas and Michaelmas ; 25 hogs at 2s.,
28 calves at Is. 8d., 40 lambs at lOd. or Is., — are other
articles which seem to have been reserved rather for the
upper table than for the servants, whose chief fare was
salted beef, without vegetables, but with mustard a
discretion'.' There was great scarcity of linen, and the
little there was, except that for the chapel, not often
washed. No mention is made of sheets ; and though
"my Lord's" table had eight "table-cloths" for the
year, that of the Knights had but one, and probably
went uncovered while the cloth was "at the wash." If
the ale was limited, the wine appears to have been more
liberally dispensed ; and ten tuns and two hogsheads of
Gascony wine, at £4. 13s. 4id. per tun, show the bent of
the Earl's taste. Ninety-one dozens of candles for the
year, and no fires after Lady-Day, except half-fires in the
great room and the nursery; twenty-four fires, with a
peck of coals daily for each, (for the ofiices,) and eighty
chaldrons of coals, at 4s. lOd., with sixty-four loads of
wood, at Is. a load, — are the provisions made for lighting •
and firing. It must have been cold work to Uve in the
noble Earl's house in Yorkshire, from Lady-Day till the
warm summer came ; which advent is sometimes put off
till next year. The famUy rose at six, or before; for
Mass was especially.ordered at that hour, in order to force
the household to rise early. The dinner-hour was ten
A.M. ; four p.M- was the hour for supper ; and at nine the
bell rang for bed. I have omitted the breakfast, which
took place at seven, after Mass ; when my Lord and
Lady sat down to a repast of two pieces of salt-fish, and
half-a-dozen red herrings, with four fresh ones, or a dish
of sprats, and a quart of beer, and the same measure of
wine. This was on meagre days. At other seasons, half

252 TABLE TEAITS.

a chine of mutton, or of boiled beef, graced the board of
the delicate Earl and Countess, who sometimes forgot
that they had to dine at ten. Capons, at 2cl. each, were
only on the Lord's table, and plovers, at a penny, (at
Christmas,) were deemed too good for any digestion that
was not carried on in a "noble" stomach. Game
generally is specified, but without intimation as to limit
of the board. No doubt the fragments were not rejected
at the servants' table ; but much certainly went in doles
at the gate. My Lord maiutained between twenty and
thirty horses for his own use. His mounted servants
found their own ; but their keep was at. the noble mas-
ter's cost. Of mounted servants, not less than three
dozen attended their Lord on a journey ; and when this
journey was for change of residence from one mansion to
another, the illustrious Percy carried with him bed and
bedding, household furniture, pots, pans, and kitchen
utensils generally. The baggage waggon bore these
impMimenta; and before and behind them went chiefs
and serving men, including in the array eleven Priests, —
two hundred and twenty-three persons in all, — and only
two cooks to look after their material happiness ! No notice
is taken of plate ; but the " hiring of pewter vessels " is
mentioned ; and with these rough elements did the Earl
construct his imperfect social system, so far taking care
for his soul as well as his body, inasmuch ps that he
contributed a groat a year to the shrine of our Lady of
Walsitgham, and the same magnificent sum to the holy
blood at Hales, on the express condition of the interest
of the Virgin for the promotion of the future welfare of
the Earl in heaven. Such is an outline of a nobleman's
household in the good old days of Henry VII.

In the reign of the same Eling, fish was a scarce article,
and for a singular reason ; namely, people destroyed them
at an unlawful season, for the purpose of feeding their

TABLE TEAITS OF ENGLAND IN EAELX TIMES. 253

pigs or manuring the ground. The favourite wine at
tahle was Malmsey : it came from Candy ; and there was
a legal restriction against its costing more than four
pounds per butt. In this reign our cooks wrought at fires
made with wood imported from Gascony and Languedoe,
whence also much wine was brought, but, by law, only in
English bottoms. The richest man of this reign was Sir
William Stanley, into whose hands fell nearly all the spoil
of Bosworth Field ; and therewith he maintained a far
more princely house and table than his master.

In Pegge's " Cv/ry" there is an account of the roUs of
provisions, with their prices, in the time of Henry VIII. ;
and we find that, at the dinner given at the marriage of
Gervase Clifton and Mary Nevile, the price of three
hogsheads of wine (one white, one red, one claret) was
set down at £5. 5«.

The dining-rooms — and, indeed, these were the common
living rooms in the greatest houses — ^were stiU uncom-
fortable places. The walls were of stone, partially con-
cealed by tapestry hung upon timber hooks, and taken
down whenever the family removed, (leaving bare the
stone walls,) lest the damp should rot it. It was a
fashion that had lasted for centuries ; but it began to dis-
appear when mansions ceased to be fortresses. The
tapestry, it may be observed, was suspended on a wooden
frame projecting from the wall, between which and the
hangings there was a passage wide enough to kill a man,
as Hamlet did Polonius, " behind the arras." It was not
tiU the reign of Charles I. that houses were built with
under-ground rooms ; the pantry, cellars, kitchens, and
store-rooms were, previous to this reign, all on the ground
floor; and the officials presiding in each took there,
respectively, their solemn post on great days of state-
dinners. There were certain days when the contents of
these several offices, meat and drink, were bountifully

254 TABLE TEAITS.

supplied to every applicant. To revert to tapestry : we
see the time of its change, in the speech of FalstafiF, who
wishes his hostess to sell her tapestry, and adopt the
cheaper painted canvas which came from HoUand.

At this time, and, indeed, long after, our English
yeomanry and tradesmen were more anxious to invigorate
their bodies hy a generous diet, than to dwell in well-fur-
nished houses, or to find comfort in cleanliness and
elegance. "These EngKsh," said the Spaniards who
came over with Philip II., " have their houses made of
sticks and dirt ; hut they fare commonly as well as the
King."

Previous to the age of Elizabeth, even the Monarch,
well as he might fare, and gloriously as he shone in
pageants, was but simply lodged. The furniture of the
bed-room of Henry VIII. was of the very simplest ; and
the magnificent Wolsey was content with deal for the
material of most of the furniture of his palace. . But the
community generally was, frotu this period, both boarded
and bedded more comfortably and refinedly than before.
The hours for meals were eight, noon, and sis; but
"after-meats," and "after-suppers," filled up the inter-
vals. It was chiefly at the "after-supper" that wine
was used. The dinner, however, had become the princi-
pal meal of the day. It was abundant ; but the jester
and harper were no longer tolerated at it, with their
lively sauce of mirth and music. It was the fashion to
be sad, and ceremonious dinners were celebrated in stately
silence, or a dignified sotto voce. Each guest took his
place according to a properly marshalled order of prece-
dence ; and, before sitting down to dinner, they washed
with rose-water and perfumes, like the parochial boards
of half a century ago, who used also to deduct the
expenses of both dinners and rose-water from the rates
levied for the relief of the poor ; this, too, at a time when

TABLE TEAITS Or ENGLAND IN EAELX TIMES. 255

men who were not parish authorities were being hanged
for steaUng to the amount of a few shillings.

By the reign of Elizabeth, napkins had been added to
table-cloths. The wealthy ate the manchet, or fine wheaten
bread ; the middle classes were content with a bread of
coarser quality called " chete ; " and the ravelled, brown, or
maslin bread was consumed by those who could afford to
procure no better. There was a passion for strong wines
at this time. Of this, France sent more than half a
hundred different sorts, and thirty-six various kinds were
imported from other parts of Europe. About 30,000 tuns
were imported yearly, exclusive of what the nobility
imported free of duty. The compound wines were in
great request ; and ladies did not disdain to put their lips
to distilled liquors, such as rosa-solis and aqua-vitce. Ale
was brewed stronger than these distillations ; and our
ancestors drank thereof to an extent that is terrific only
to think of. Camden ascribes the prevailing drunkenness
to the long wars in th^ Netherlands, previous to which,
we had been held, " of aU the northern nations, the most
commended for sobriety." The barbarous terms formerly
used in drinking matches, are all of Dutch, German, or
Danish origin, and this serves to confirm Camden's asser-
tion. The statutes passed to correct the evil were dis-
regarded. James I. was particularly desirous to enforce
these statutes ; but his chief difficulty lay in the fact, that
he was the first to infringe them.

In Elizabeth's reign the " watching candles " of Alfred
(to mark the time) were in use in many houses. This is
a curious trait of in-door hfe. We have an " exterior "
one, in the fact that the Vicar of Hurly, who served
Maidenhead, had an addition of stipend on accoimt of the
danger he ran, in crossing the thicket, when he passed to
or from the church — and his inn. It was not a delicate
period, and if caraways always appeared at dessert, every

256 TABIE TEAITS.

one knew that they were there for the kind purpose of
curing expected flatulence in the guests.

In James the First's reign, the fashion of Mahnsey had
passed away, and the Hungarian red wine (Ofener) had
taken its place. It came by Breslau to Hamburg, where
it was shipped to England. It is a strong wine, and
bears some resemblance to port.

In country-houses in the seventeenth century, the
Knight or Squire was head of a host of retainers, three-
fourths of whom consumed the substance of the master
on whose estate they were bom, without rendering him
much other service than drinking his ale, eating his beef,
and wearing his livery. Brief family prayers, and heavy
family breakfasts, a run with the hounds, and an early
dinner, followed by long and heavy drinking, till supper-
time, when more feeding and imbibing went on Tintil each
man finished his posset, or carried it with him to bed,—
such was the ordinary course : but it admitted of excep-
tions where the master was a man of intellect, and then
the country-house was a temple of hospitality rather than
of riot ; and good sense and ripe wit took the place of
the sensuality, obscurity, and ignorance that distinguished
the boards where the Squire was simply a " brute."

Of the table traits of this century, the best examples
are to be found in Pepys and Evelyn. In the Diary of
the former, may be seen what a jolly tavern Ufe could be
led by a grave official, and no scandal given. Evelyn takes
us into better company. We find him at the Spanish
Ambassador's, when his Excellency, by way of dessert,
endeavoured to convert him to the Roman Catholic
Church. We go with him to the feast where the Envoy
from the Emperor of Morocco figured as so civilized a
gentleman, whUe the representative of the Czar of Mus-
covy comported himself like a rude clown ; and we dine
with him at Lady Simderland's, where the noble hostess

TABLE TEAITS OP ENStAIfD IN EAELT TIMES. 257

had engaged, for the amusement of the guests, a man who
swallowed stones, and who not only performed the feat in
presence of the company, but convinced them there was
no cheat, hy making the stones rattle in his stomach.
But, noiis avons change tout cela, and not only changed in
taste, but improved in manners.

Pepys gives a curious account of a Lord Mayor's
dinner in 1663. It was served in the Guildhall, at one
o'clock in the day. A bill of fare was placed with every
salt-cellar, and at the end of each table was a list of " the
persons proper" there to be seated. Here is a mixture
of abundance and barbarism. " Many were the tables,
but none in the haU, but the Mayor's and the Lords'
of the Privy Council, tliat Jiad napkins or knives, which
was very strange. I sat at the merchant-.strangers' table,
where ten good dishes to a mess, with plenty of wine
of aU sorts ; but it was very unpleasing that we had
no napkins, nor change of trenchers, and drank out of
earthen pitchers and wooden dishes. The dinner, it
seems, is made by the Mayor and two Sheriffs for the
time being, and the whole is reckoned to come to £700
or £800 at most." Pepys took his spoon and fork with
him, as was the custom of those days with guests invited
-to great entertainments. " Porks" came in with Tom
Coryat, in the reign of James I. ; but they were not
"familiar" tUl after the Eestoration. The "laying of
napkins," as it was called, was a profession of itself.
Pepys mentions, the da^ before one of his dinner-parties,
that he went home, and " there found one laying of my
napkins against to-morrow, in figures of all sorts, Which
is mighty pretty, and, it seems, is his trade, and he gets
much money by it." The age of Pepys, we may further
notice, was the great "supping age." Pepys himself
supped heartily on venison pasty; but his occasional
"next-morning" remark was like that of Scrub: "My

s

258 TABLE TEAITS.

head aches eonsumedly ! " The dashing Duchess of Cleve-
land supped off such substantials as roast chine of beef;
much more sohd fare than that of the Squires in a suc-
ceeding reign, who were content, with Sir Roger de
Coverley, to wind up the day with " good Cheshire cheese,
best mustard, a golden pippin, and a pipe of John Sly's
best."

A few years earlier. Laud had leisure to write anxiously
to Strafford on the subject of Ulster eels. " Tour Ulster
eels are the fattest,and fairest that ever I saw, and it 's a
thousand pities there should be any error in their salting,
or any thing else about them ; for how the carriage
should hurt them I do not see, considering that other
salted eels are brought as far, and retain their goodness ;
but the dried fish was exceeding good." There was a
good deal of error in the preserving of other things
besides eels, if Laud had only known as much.

It may be mentioned as something of a " Table Trait,"
illustrating the popular appetite in the reign of Charles II.,
that he sent sea stores to the people encamped in Moor-
fields ; but they were so well provisioned by the liberality
of the nation, that they turned up their noses at the
King's biscuits, and sent them back, "not having been
used to the same." There was some ungrateful imperti-
nence in this ; but there was less meanness in it than was
shown by the great ladies of Queen Anne's reign, who
were curious in old china, and who indulged their passion
by "swopping" their old clothes for fragile cups and
saucers, instead of giving the former to the poor.

Dryden speaks, in the Preface to his "Love Trium-
phant," of a remarkable trait of the time of William
III. "It is the usual practice," he says, " of our decayed
gentry, to look about them for some illustrious family,
and then endeavour to fix their young darling, where he
may be both well educated and supported."

TABLE TEAITS 01' ENGHiAIID IN EAELY TIMES. 259

Shaftesbury reveals to us an illustration of George the
First's reign. " In latter days," he says, " it has become
the fashion to eat with less ceremony and method. 'Every
one chooses to carve for himself. The learned manner
of dissection is out of request ; and a certain method of
cookery has been introduced, by which the anatomical
science of the table is entirely set aside. Ragouts and
fricassees are the reigning dishes, in which every thing is
so dismembered, and thrown out of all order and form,
that no part of the mess can properly be divided or dis-
tinguished from another." But we have come to a period
that demands a chapter to itself; and even with that
imphed space, we can hardly do justice to the Table
Traits of the Last Century.

b2

TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY.

When Mr. Chute intimated to Horace Walpole ttat
Ms "temperance diet and milk" had rendered him stupid,
Walpole '^otested pleasantly against such an idea. " I
have such lamentahle proofs," he says, " every day, 6f the
stupifying qualities of beef, ale, and -wine, that I have
contracted a most rehgious veneration for your spiritual
nouriture. Only imagine that I here, (Houghton,) every
day, see men who are mountains of roast beef, and only
seem just roughly hewn out into the outlines of human
form, like the giant rock at Pratolino ! I shudder when
I see them brandish their knives, in act to carve, and
look on them as savages that devour one another. I
should not stare at all more than I do, if yonder Alder-
man, at the end of the table, was to stick his fork into
his joUy neighbour's cheek, and cut a brave slice of brown
and fat. Why, I '11 swear I see no difference between a
country gentleman and a sirloin: whenever the &st
laughs, or the latter is cut, there run out just the same
streams of gravy ! Indeed, the sirloin does not ask quite
so many questions. I have an aunt here, a family piece
of goods, an old remnant of inquisitive hospitality and
economy, who, to all intents and purposes, is as beefy as
her neighbours."

Certainly, I think it may be considered that, in diet
and in principles, we have improved upon the fashion of
one htmdred and ten years ago; — and, perhaps, the
improvement in principles is a consequence of that in

TABLE TRAITS OF THE lAST CENTITET. 261

diet. There was a profound meaning in the point of
faith of some old religionists, that the stomach was the
seat of the soul. However this may be, the "beefy"
men of Walpole's time had, occasionally, strange ideas
touching honour. Old Nourse, for instance, challenged
Lord Windsor, who refused to fight him, either with
sword or pistols, on the plea that Nourse was too aged a
man. Thereupon Nourse, iu a fit of vexation and iadi-
gestion, went home from the cofiee-house and cut his
throat ! " It was strange, yet very English," says Wal-
pole. Old Nourse must have had Japanese blood ia him.
At Jeddo, when a nobleman feels himself slighted, he
walks home, takes the sharpest knife he can find, and
rips himself open, firom the v/rribilicus to the trachea !

Quite as certainly, strong diet and weak principles
prevailed among our great-grandsires and their dames.
Lady Townshend fell in love with the rebel Lord Xil-
mamoek, from merely seeing him at his trial. She forth-
with cast off her old lover. Sir Harry Nisbett, and
became " as yellow as a jonquil" for the new object of her
versatile affection. She even took a French master, in
order that she might forget the language of " the bloody
Enghsh!" She was not so afihcted, but that she could
bear the company of gay George Selwyn to dine with
her ; and he, believing that her passion was feigned, joked
with her, on what was always a favourite topic with
himselfj^ihe approaching execution. Lady Townshend
forthwith rushed from the table in rage and tears, and
Mr. Selwyn finished the bottle with " Mrs. Dorcas, her
woman," who begged of him to help her to a sight of the
execution ! Mrs. Dorcas had a friend who had promised
to protect her, and, added she, " I can lie in the Tower
the night before !" This is a pretty dining-;:oom interior
of the last century. As for Greorge Selwyn, that most
celebrated of the diners-out of a hundred years a^o, he

262 TABLE TEAITS.

said the pleasantest thing possible at dessert, after tliS
execution of Lord Lovat. Some ladies asked him how-
he could be such a barbarian as to see the head cut off.
"JSTay," said he, "if that was such a crime, I am sure I
have made amends ; for I went to see it sewed on again !"
" George," says Walpole, " never thinks but a la t^ie
trancMe ; he came to town t' other day to have a tooth
drawn, and told the man that he would drop his hand-
kerchief for the signal."

Selwyn kept his powers bright by keeping good com-
pany; while Gray the poet was but indifferent society,
from living reclusely, added to a natural turn for melan-
choly, and " a little too much dignity." Young, a greater
poet than Gray, was as brOliant in conversation as Selwyn
himself, as long as, like Selwyn, he pohshed his wit by
contact with the world. When he dined with Garrick,
Quia, and George Anne Bellamy, he was the sprightliest
of the four ; but when he took to realizing the solitude
he had epicaUy praised, Young, too, became a proser.
Quin loved good living as much as he did sparkling con-
versation ; and Garrick, the other g^est noticed above, has
perfectly delineated Quin the epicure in the following
epigram, as he subsequently did Quin, the man and
brother of men, in his epitaph in Bath Abbey : —

" A plague on Egypt's art I I say ;
Embalm the dead, on senseless clay

Ricli wines and spices waste !
Like sturgeon, or like brawn, sbaU I,
Bound in a precious pickle, lie,

■Whicb I sbaU never taste ?

"let me embahn this flesh of mine
With turtle fat and Bordeaux wine.

And spoil th' Egyptian trade.
Than Humphrey's Duke more happy I;
Embalm'd alive, old Quin shall die,

A mummy, ready made."

TiBLE TEAITS OI" THE LAST CENTTIET. 263

A good many female mummies were prepared during
tlie last century after a similar receipt. Witness Wal-
pole's neighbour at Strawberry HQl, " an attorney's wife,
and much given to the bottle. By the time she has
finished that and daylight, she grows afraid of thieves,
and makes her servants fire minute-guns out of the
garret windows. The divine Asheton," he proceeds,
" will give you an account of the astonishment we were
in last night at hearing guns. I began to think that
the Duke (of Cumberland) had brought some of his
defeats from Flanders."

Toung denounces, in his " Satires'," both tea and wine,
as abused by the fair sex of the last century. In Mem-
mia he paints Lady Betty Grermain, in the Unes I have
quoted under the head of " Tea;" and then, hurling his
shafts of satire at that which another poet has described
as "cups which cheer, but not inebriate," he adds, —

" Tea I tow I tremble at thy fatal stream I
As Lethe, dreadful to the love of fame.
What devastations on thy hanks are seen !
What shades of mighty names which once have heen !
A hecatomb of characters snppUes
Thy painted altar's daily sacrifice.
Heryey, Pearce, Blonnt, aspersed hy thee, decay.
As grains of finest sugars melt away.
And recommend thee more to mortal taste :
Scandal 's the sweetener of a female feast,"

And then, adverting to the ladies who, Uke Walpole's
"attorney's wife," were much given to the bottle, the
poet exclaims, — ■

" But this inhnman triumph shall decline.
And thy revolting Naiads call for wine ;
Spirits no longer shall serve under thee.
But reign in thy own cup, exploded Tea !
Citronia's nose declares thy ruin nigh ;
And who dares give Citronia's nose the lie ?

264 TABLE TRAITS.

The ladies long at men of drink exclaini'd.

And what impair'd hoth health and virtue blamed.

At length, to rescue man, the generous lass

Stole from her consort the pernicious glass.

As glorious as the British Queen renown'd.

Who suck'd the poison from her husband's wound."

Manners and morals generally go hand in hand ; but
those of the ladies satirized by Young were not so bad as
those of the French Princesses of a few years before,
when they and Duchesses were so addicted to drinking,
that no one thought it a vice, since royalty and aristo-
cracy practised it. The Dauphine of Burgundy is indeed
praised by her biographers as not drinking to any great
excess dui-ing the three last years of her Ufe. But this
was exceptional. The Duchess of Bourbon and her
daughters drank like dragoons ; but the latter were
unruly in their cups, whereas the old lady carried her
liquor discreetly. Henrietta, Madame de Montespan,
and the Princess di Monaco, were all addicted, more or
less, to tipphng. The Duchess de Bourbon and Her
Grace of Chartres added smoking to their other boon
qualities ; and the Dauphin once surprised them with
pipes which had been cullotes for them by common
soldiers of the Swiss Guard ! In France, devotion even
was made a means towards drunkenness. Bungener tells
us, in his " Trois Sermons sous Louis JTF.," that Mon-
sieur Basquiat de la House owned a small estate in Gas-
cony, which produced a wine which no one would buy.
Being at Eome, as Secretary of an Embassy, he procured
a body from the catacombs, which he christened by the
name of a saint venerated in his part of the country. The
people received it with great pomp. AJete was appointed
by the Pope, a fair by the Government, and the wine
was sold by hogsheads ! It was a wine as thin as the
beverage which Mr. Chute lived on when he had the gout,

TABLE TEAMS 01' THE LAST CENTUET. 265

at wMcli time, says Walpole, " lie keeps himself very low,
and lives upon very thin ink."

There was a good deal of latitude of observation and
conversation at the dinner-tables of the last century ; and
the letter-writer I have jiist cited affords ns ample
evidence of the fact. John Stanhope, of the Admiralty,
he informs us, " was sitting by an old Mr. Curzon, a nasty
wretch, and very covetous ; his nose wanted blowing, and
continued to want it; at last Mr. Stanhope, with the
greatest good breeding, said, ' Indeed, Sir, if you don't
wipe your nose, you will lose that drop.'"

A hundred years ago, Walpole remarked that Method-
ism, drinking, and gambling were all on the increase. Of
the first he sneeringly says, " It increases as fast as any
religious nonsense did." Of the second he remarks,
"Drinking is at the highest wine-mark ;" and he speaks
of the third as being so violent, that " at the last New-
market meeting, in the rapidity of both gaming and
drinking, a bank bill was thrown down, and, nobody im-
mediately claiming it, they agreed to give it to a man
who was standing by !"

There was a love of good eating, as well as of deep
drinking, even among the upper classes of the last cen-
tury. What a picture of a Duchess is that of her Grace
of Queensberry, posting down to Parson's Green, to tell
Lady Sophia Thomas " something of importance ; "
namely, " Take a couple of beefsteaks, clap them together
as if they were for a dumpling, and eat them with pep-
per and salt: it is the best thing you ever tasted! I
could not help coining to tell you this;" — and then she
drove l>ack to town. And what a picture of a Magis-
trate is that of Fielding, seated at supper with a blind
man, a Drury-Lane Chloris, and three Irishmen, all
eating cold mutton and ham from one dish, on a very
dirty cloth, and " his worship " refusing to rise to attend

266 TABLE TEAITS.

to the administration of Justices' justice ! It is but
fair, however, to Fielding to add, that he might have had
better fare had he been more oppressive touching fees.
And, besides, great dignitaries set him but an indifferent
example. Gray, speaking of the Duke of ^Newcastle's
installation at Oxford, remarks, that " every one was very
gay and very busy in the morning, and very owlish and
very tipsy at night. I make no exceptions, from the
Chancellor to Blewcoat." Lord Pembroke, truly, was
temperate enough to live upon vegetables ; but the diet
did not improve either his temper or his morals. Ladies
— and they were not over delicate a century ago — as
much dreaded sitting near him at dinner, as their
daughters and grand-daughters dreaded to be near the
late Duke of Cumberland, who was pretty sure to say
something in the course of dinner expressly to embarrass
them. The vegetarian Lord Pomfret was so blasphemous
at tennis, that the Primate of Ireland, Dr. George Stone,
was compelled to leave off playing with him. For Pri-
mates handled the rackets then, as Pope and Cardinals do
now the cue. Pio Nono and the expertest of the Sacred
College play la poule at billiards, after dinner, with the
view of keeping down the good Pontiff's obesity. This is
almost as curious a trait as that of Taafe, the Irishman,
who, conceiving himself to have been insulted at a dinner,
and not being then able, as a Eoman Catholic, to wear a
sword, changed his religion, and ran his adversary
through the body. The confusion of ideas which
prompted a man to follow a particular faith, in order that
he might commit murder, was something like that which
influenced the poor woman who, suddenly becoming
pious, after hearing a sermon from Eowland HiU, went to
a book-stall, and stole a Bible.

I have noticed the love of good eating, and the coarse-
ness connected with it. There was also a coarse economy

TABLE TEAITS 01' THE LAST CENTrET. 267

attendant on it. The Duchess of Devonshire would call
out to the Duke, when both were presiding at supper
after one of their assemblies, " Good God, Duke ! don't
cut the ham ; nobody will eat any ;" and then she would
relate the circumstances of her private menage to her
neighbour : " When there 's only my Lord and I, besides
a pudding, we have always a dish of roast," — no very
dainty fare for a ducal pair. Indeed, there was much
want of daintiness, and of dignity, too, in many of those
with whom both might have been looked for as a pos-
session. Lord Coventry chased his Lady round the
dinner-table, and scrubbed the paint off her cheeks with
a napkin. The Duke and Duchess of Hamilton were
more contemptible in their pomposity than their Graces
of Devonshire were in their plainness. At their own
house they walked in to dinner before their company, sat
together at the upper end of their own table, ate together
off one plate, and drank to nobody beneath the rank of
Eail. It was, indeed, a wonder that they could get any
one of any rank to dine with them at all. But, in point
of dinners, people are not " nice " even now. Dukes very
recently dined with a railway potentate, in hopes of profit-
ing by the condescension ; and Duchesses heard, without a
smile, that potentate's lady superbly dismiss them with
an " av, reservoir ! " — an expression, by the way, which is
refined, when compared with that taught by our nobility,
a hundred years ago, to the rich Bohemian Countess
Chamfelt; namely, "D— n you!" and, "Kiss me!"
but it was apologetically said of her, that she never used
the former but upon the miscarriage of the latter. This
was -at a time when vast assemblies were followed by vast
suppers, vast suppers by vast drinking, and when nymphs
and swains reached home at dawn with wigs, like Eanger's
in the comedy, vastly battered, and not very fit to be seen.
Pope, in the last century, moralized, with effect, on the

268 TAEIB TEAITS.

deaths of tlio dissolute Buckmgliam and the avaricious
Cutler; and the avarice of Sir John was perhaps more
detestable than any extravagance that is satirized by
Pope, or witticized by Walpole. But Sir John Cutler
was ingenious in his thrift. This rich miser ordinarily
travelled on horseback and alone, iu order to avoid
expense. On reaching his inn at night, he feigned indis-
position, as an excuse for not taking Slipper. He would
simply order the hostler to bring a little straw to his
room, to put in his boots. He then had his bed warmed,
and got into it, but only to get out of it again as soon as
the servant had left the room. Then, with the straw in
his boots and the candle at his bed-side, he kindled a
Httle fire, at which he toasted a herring which he drew
from his pocket. This, with a bit of bread which he
carried with him, and a little water from the jug, enabled
the lord of countless thousands to sup at a very moderate
cost.

Well, this sordidness was less culpable perhaps than
slightly overstepping income by giving assemblies and-
suppers. At the latter there was, at least, wit, and as
much of it as was ever to be found at Madame du Def~
fand's, where, by the way, the people did not sup. " Last
night, at my Lady Hervey's," says Walpole, "Mrs.
Dives was expressing great panic about the French,"
who were said to be preparing to invade England. " My
Lady Eochford, looking down on her fan, said, with great
softness, ' I don't know ; I don't think the French are a
sort of people that women need be afraid of.' " This was
more commendable wit than that of Madame du Defiand
herself, who, as I have previously remarked, made a whole
assembly laugh, at Madame de Marchajs', when her old
lover was known to be dying, by saying as she entered,
" He is gone ; and wasn't it lucky ? He died at six, or I
could not possibly have shown myself here to-night."

TABLE TBAITS OP THE IiAST OBNTTTET 269

Our vain lady-witS, however, too often lacked refine-
ment. " If I drink any more," said Lady Coventry at
Lord Hertford's tatle, " if I drink any more, I shall be
'mucMbus.'" "Lord!" said Lady Mary Coke, "what
is that?" "O," was the reply, "it is Irish for senti-
mental!" In those days there were no wedding break-
fasts : the nuptial banquet was a dinner, and bride and
bridegroom saw it out. Walpole congratulates himself
that, at the marriage of bis niece Maria, " there was nei-
ther form nor indecency, both which generally meet on
such occasions. They were married," he adds, " at my
brother's in Pall Mali, just before dinner, by Mr. Keppel ;
the company, my brother, his ' son, Mrs. Keppel and
Charlotte, Lady Elizabeth Keppel, Lady Betty Walde-
grave, and I. We dined there; the Earl and new
Cotmtess got into their post-chaise at eight o'clock, and
went to Navestock alone, where they stay tiU Saturday
night." Walpole gives instances enough — and more than
enough — ^where matters did not go off so becomingly.
Lords and Ladies were terribly coarse in sentiment and
expression; and the women were often worse than the
men. " Miss Pett," says the writer whom I have so
often quoted, " has dismissed Lord Buckmgham : tant
inieux poii/r' lui! She damns her eyes that she wiU,
marry some Captain : tant mieux pour elle." This is a
sample of Table Traits in 1760 ; and it was long before
manners and morals improved. The example was not of
the best soft even in high places. The mistress of Alfieri
dined at Court, as widow of the Pretender ; and Madame
du Barry was publicly feasted by our potential Lord
Mayor.

Some of the women were not only coarse in speech, but
furies in act, and often sharpers to boot. Thus, when
" Jemmy Lumley," in 1761, had a party of ladies at his
house, with whom, after dinner, he played whist, from six

270 TABLE TEAITS.

at night till noon tlie next day, he lost two thousand
pounds, which, suspecting knavery, he refused to pay.
His antagonist, Mrs. Mackenzie, subsequently pounced
upon him in the garden of an inn at Hampstead, where
he was about to give a dinner to some other ladies. The
sturdy " Scotchwoman," as Gray calls her, demanded her
money, and, on meeting with a refusal, she " horsewhipped,
trampled, bruised," and served him with worse indigni-
ties still, as may be seen by the curious, in Gray's Letter
to Warton. Lumley's servants only with difficulty
rescued their master from the fury, who carried a horse-
whip beneath her hoop. The gentlemen do not appear
to have been so generous, in their character of lovers, as
their French brethren, who ruiued themselves for "leg
"beaux yeux" of some temporary idol. Miss Ford laughed
consumedly at Lord Jersey, for sending her (" an odd first
and only present to a beloved mistress") a boar's head,
which, she says, " I had often the honour to meet at your

Lordship's table before and would have eat it, had it

been eatable."

The pubUc are pretty familiar with the Household-Book
of the Earl of Northumberland ; and have learned much
therefrom touching the Table Traits of the early period
in which it was written. A later Earl did not inherit
the spirit of organization which influenced his ancestor.
" I was to dine at Northumberland House," says Wal-
pole, in 1765, " and went there a little after hour. There
I found the Countess, Lady Betty Mackinsy, Lady Strat-
ford, my Lady Finlater, — who was never out of Scotland
before, — a tall lad of fifteen, her son. Lord Drogheda, and
Mr. Worseley. At five" (which is conjectured to have
been the hour of extreme fashion a century ago) " arrived
Mr. Mitchell, who said the Lords had commenced to read
the Poor BiQ, which would take, at least, two hours', and,
perhaps, would debate it afterwards. We concluded din-

TABLE TEAITS OF THE LAST CENTUET. 271

ner would be called for ; it not being very precedented
for ladies to wait for gentlemen. No such thing ! Sis
o'clock came, — seven o'clock came, — our coaches came !
Well, we sent them away; and excuses were, we were
engaged. Still, the Countess's heart did not relent, nor
uttered a syllable of apology. We wore out the wind
and the weather, the opera and the play, Mrs. Cornely's
and Almack's, and every topic that would do in a formal
circle. We hinted, represented — in vain. The clock
striick eight. My Lady, at last, said she would go and
order dinner; but it was a good half-hour before it
appeared. We then sat down to a table of fourteen
covers ; but, instead of substantials, there was nothing
but a profusion of plates, striped red, green, and yellow,
— gUt plate, blacks, and uniforms. My Lady Finlater,
who never saw those enabroidered dinners, nor dined after
three, was famished. The first course stayed as long as
possible, in hopes of the Lords ; so did the second. The
dessert at last arrived, and the middle dish was actually
set on, when Lord Finlater and Mr. Mackay arrived!
Would you believe it ? — ^the dessert was remanded, and
the whole first course brought back again I Stay — I
have not done ! Just as this second first course had done
its duty, Lord Northumberland, Lord Strafford, and
Mackinsy came in ; and the whole began a third time.
Then the second course, and the dessert ! I thought
we should have dropped from our chairs with fatigue
and fumes. When the clock struck eleven, we were
asked to return to the drawing-room, and take tea and
coffee; but I said I was engaged to supper, and came
home to bed!" This dinner may be contrasted with
another given, at a later period, by a member of the same
house. The Nobleman in question was an Earl Percy, who
was in teland with his regiment, — ^the Fifth Infantry ;
and who, after much consideration, consented to give a

272 TABIiE TEAIia.

dinner to the officers in garrison at Limerick. The gal-
lant, hut cautious, Earl ordered the repast at a tavern,
specifying that it' should be for fifty persons, at eighteen-
pence per head. The officers heard of the arrangement,
and they ordered the landlord to provide a banquet at a
guinea per head, promising to pay the difference, in the
event of their entertainer declining to do so. Wlien the
banquet was served, there was but one astonished and
uncomfortable individual at the board; and that was the
Earl himself, who beheld a feast for the gods, and heard
himself gratefully complimented upon the excellence
both of viands and wines. The astonished Earl expe-
rienced an easily-understood difficulty in returning thanks
when his health was drunk with an enthusiasm that
bewildered him ; and, on retiring early, he sought out
the landlord, in order to have a solution of an enigma
that sorely puzzled him. Boniface told the unadorned
and unwelcome truth ; and the inexperienced young Earl,
acknowledging bis mistake, discharged the bUl with a
sigh on himself, and a cheque on his banker.

A host, after all, ma^ appear parsimonious without
intending to be so. " This -wine," said one of this sort
to the late Mr. Pocock of Bristol, who had been dimng
with him, "costs me six shilliags a bottle!" "Does
it ?" asked the guest, with a quaint look of gay reproof,
"then pass it round, and ilet me have another six-
penn'orth !"

But, to return to our Table Traits of the Last Cen-
tury. In 1753, on the 4th of June, there was an
installation of Knights of the Grarter, ,at Windsor Castle,
followed by Ja grand dinner, and a ball. It would seem as
if the public claimed the right of seeing the speciacle.foi
which they had to pay ; for we read that " the populace
attempted several times to force their way into the hall
where the Knights were at dinner, against the Guards,

ta:ble teaits op xni) last CENTrEx. 273

on wMcli some were cut and wounded, and the Guards
fired several times on them, with powder, to deter them,
but without effect, till they had orders to load with hall,
which made them desist." This is an iU-worded para-
graph from the papers of the day ; but it is a graphic
illustration of the manners of the period.

These few samples of what society was in the last
century, would suffice alone to show that it was sadly out
of joiat. What caused it ? Any one who wiU tate the
trouble to go carefully through the columns of the ill-
printed newspapers of the early part of the last century,
wiU find that drunkenness, dissoluteness, and the sword
hanging on every fool's thigh, ready to do his bidding,
were the characteristics of the period. People got drunk
at dinners, and then slew one another, or in some other
way broke the law. Lord Mohun and Captain HaU
dined together before they made their attempt to carry
off Mrs. Bracegirdle ; and when defeated in their Tarquin-
like endeavour, they slaughtered poor WiU Montford, the
player, in the pubUe streets, for no better reason than
that Montford admired the lady, and HaU was jealous of
the admirer. But neither copious dining, nor copious
drinking, could make a brave man of Mohun. In proof
of this, it is only necessary to state that before he fought
his butchering duel with the Duke of Hamilton, he spent
the previous night feasting and drinking at the Bagnio,
which place he left in the morning, with his second,
Major-General M'Carty, as the "Post-boy" remarks, "seized
with fear and trembling." " The dog Mohun," as Swift
styled him, was slain, and so was the Duke ; but it is
imcertain whether the latter fell by the hand of his adverr
sary, or the sword of that adversary's second. A few
years later we read of Fulwood, the lawyer, going to
the play after dinner, drawing upon Beau Pielding, run-
ning him through, rushing in triumph to another house,

T

274 TABLE TEAITS.

meeting another antagonist, and getting slain by him,
without any one caring to interfere.

In one of the numbers of the " Daily Post" for 1726,
I find it recorded that a bevy of gallants, having joyously
dined or supped together, descended from a, hackney-
coach in PiccacHUy, billjed the coachman, beat him to a
mummy, and stabbed his horses. Flushed with victory,
they rushed into a neighbouring public-house, drew upon
the gallants, terrified the ladies, and laughed at the
mistress of the establishment, who declared that they
would bring down ruin upon a place noted for " its, safety
and secrecy." The succeeding paragraph in the paper
announces to the public that the Bishop of London will
preach on the following Sunday in Bow-church, Cheap-
side, on the necessity for a reformation of manners !

The Clubs, and especially the " Sword Clubs," with
their feastings and fightings, were the chief causes that
manners were as depraved as they were. After supper,
these Clubs took possession of the town, and held their
sword against every man, and found every man's sword
against them. The " Bold Bucks," and the " Hell-Fires,"
divided the Metropolis between them. The latter, a
comparatively innocent association, found their simple
amusement in mutilating watchmen and citizens. The
"Bold Bucks" took for their devilish device, "Blind and
Bold Love," and, under it, committed atrocities, the very
thought of which makes the heart of human nature pal-
pitate with horror and disgust. No man could become
a member who did not denounce the claims both of
nature and God ! They used to assemble every Sunday
at a tavern, close to the church of St. Mary-le-Strand,
During divine service, they kept a noisy band of horns
and drums continually at work ; and, after service, they
sat down to dinner, the principal dish at which was a
" Holy-Ghost pie !" Assuredly the sermon of the metro-

TABLE TEAITS OF THE LAST OENTUET. 275

politan Prelate was much, needed ; but, when preached,
reformation did but very slowly follow, especially in high
places. At the very end of the century we hear of the
Prince of Wales dining at the Duke of Queensberry's, at
Richmond, with the last mistress of Louis XV. ; and
nobody appears to have been scandalized. And this was
the characteristic of the time : vice was not only general,
but it did not very seriously offend the few exceptional
individuals. For the first three quarters of the century the
epitaph of that time might have been taken from the
eulogiimi passed by a May-Pair preacher in his Puneral
Sermon upon Frederick, Prince of Wales : " He bad no
great parts, but be had great virtues ; indeed, they
degenerated into vices : he was very generous ; but I
bear his generosity has ruined a great many people ; and
then his condescension was such, that he kept very bad
company."

I have, elsewhere, spoken of some of the roystering
Clubs of the last century; but I cannot refrain from
adding two other instances here, as examples of the
Table Traits of the same period. The Calves'-Head Club
established itself in Suffolk-Street, Charing Cross, on the
anniversary of the martyrdom of King Charles, in the
year 1735. The gentlemen members had an entertain-
ment of calves' heads, some of which they showed to the
mob outside, whom they treated with strong beer. In
the evening, they caused a bonfire to be made before the
door, and threw into it, with loud huzzas, a calf's head,
dressed up in a napkin. They also dipped their napkins
in red wine, and waVed them from the windows, at the
same time drinking toasts publicly. The mob huzzaed,
as well as their fellow brutes of the Club ; but, at length,
to show their superior refinement, they broke the win-
dows; and at length became so mischievous, that the
Guards were called in to prevent further outrage.
T 2

276 TABLE TEAITS.

• The above was, no doubt, ■& demonstration on the part
of gentlemen of republican principles. Some few years
later, a different instance occurs. The " Monthly Eeview,"
May, 1757, mentions, that " seven gentlemen dined at a
house of puhHc entertainment in London, and were sup-
posed to have run as great lengths in luxury and expense,
if not greater, than the same number of persons were ever
known to do before at a private regale. They afterwards
3)layed a game of cards, to decide which of them should
pay the bill. It amounted to £81. lis. fid. ; besides a
turtle, which Was a present to the company." This was
certainly a heavy bill. A party of the same num-
ber at the Clarendon, and with turtle charged in the
bill, would, in our days, find exceeding difficidty in
spending more than £5 each. Their grandsires ex-
pended more than twice as much for a dinner not half
as good.

It is only with the present century that old customs
disappeared ; and, with regard to some of them, society is
all the better for their disappearance. Even plum
porridge did not survive the first year of this half cen-
tury ; when the more soHd and stable dynasty of plum-
pudding was finally established. Brand relates, that on
Christmas-Day, 1801, he dined at the Chaplain's table, at
St. James's, " and partook of the first thing served and
eaten on that festival, at that table, namely, a tureen full
of rich, luscious plum-porridge. I do not know," he
■says, " that the custom is any where else retained." The
great innovation, after this, was in the days of the Eegent,
when oysters were served as a prelude to dinner. This
fashion was adopted by the Prince on the recommenda*
fcion of a gentleman of his household, the elder Mr.
Watier, who brought it with him from France, and added
an "experto crede " to his recommendation. This fashion,
however, like others, has passed away ; and oyster" and

TABLE TEAITS OF THE LAST CENTTJET. 277

drams, as overtures to dinner, are things that have fallen
into the domain of history.

There is a custom of these later days, much observed
at Christmas time, which deserves a word of notice. I
allude to the " Christmas-tree." The custom is one,
however novel in England, of very ancient observance
elsewhere. Its birth-place is Egypt. The tree there
used was the palm ; and the ceremony w^as in full force
long before the days of Antony and Cleopatra. The
palm puts forth a fresh shoot every month. Its periodical
leaves appear as regularly as those of Mr. Bentley's
" Miscellany." In the time of the winter solstice, when
parties were given in ancient Misraim, a spray of this
tree, with, twelve shoots, was suspended, to symboUze the
completion of another year. The custom passed into
Italy, where the fir-tree was employed for the purposes of
celebration ; and its pyramidal tips were decorated with
burning candles, in honour of Saturn. This festival, the
Saturnalia, was observed at the winter solstice, from the
17th to the 21st of December, and, during its continu-
ance, Davus was as good a man as Chremes. The Sigil-
laria, days for interchanging presents of figures in wax,
Hke those on the Christmas-tree, followed ; and, finally,
the Juvenalia, when men became "boys with boys,"
matrons turned children once again, and young and old
indulged in the solemn romps with which the festival
closed, and which med to mark our own .old-fashioned
festivities at Christmas time. That the Egyptian tree
passed into Germany, may be seen in the pyramids which
sometimes there are substituted for the tree. But the
antique northern mythology has supplied some of the
observances. The Jiiel Fesi was the mid-winter " "Wheel
Feast;" and the wheel represented the circling years
which, end but to begin again. The yule-log, as we call
it, was the wheel-shaped log; in front of which was

278 TABLE TEAITS.

roasted the great boar, — an animal hateful to the god of
the sun, but the flesh of which was religiously eaten by
his worshippers. At this festival presents were made,
which were concealed in wrappers, and flung in at open
windows, emblematical, we are told, of the good, but as
yet hidden, things which the opening year had in store.

The Church generally made selection of the heathen
festivals for its own holy -days. In the early days, this
was done chiefly to enable Christians to be merry without
danger to themselves. It would not have been safe for
them to eat, drink, and rejoice on days when Pagan
Governments put on mourning. They were glad, then,
when these were glad, and feasted with them, but holding
other celebrations in view. Hence the German tree;
only, for the sun which crowned the Eoman tree, in
honour of Apollo, the Germans place a figure of the Son of
God ; and, for the Phoebus and his flocks at the foot, they
Substitute " the Good Shepherd." The waxen figures are
also the sigillctria, but with more holy impress. The
Eatv/fnalia have a place in the table joys that attend the
exhibition of the tree, in presence of which joy is sup-
posed to wither.

In conclusion, I cannot but notice one other table
custom, which is of Teutonic origin. I allude to the
Cabinet dinners given by Ministers previous to the open-
ing of Parliament, and at which the Eoyal Speech is read,
before it is declared in the presence of collective wisdom.
This, at all events, reminds us of the ancient German
custom, mentioned by Tacitus, who tells us, that the
Teutonic legislators and warriors consulted twice touch-
ing every question of importance : once, by night, and
over the bowl ; and once, by day, when they were per-
fectly sober. Of course, I would not insinuate that
Ministers could possibly indulge too fondly over their
cups, like the Senators of the Hercynian forest; and yet

TABLE TEAITS OF THE lAST CENTrET. 279

Viscount Sidmouth's vice, as Lord Holland tells us, " was
wine ;" and we have heard even of grave Lord-Stewards
so drunk as to pull down the Monarchs they held by the
hand, and should have supported. The last unfortunate
official who so offended, should have craftily qualified
his wine with water ; and the mention of that subject
reminds me of the origin of wine and water, of which I
will say a few words, after adding one or two more traits
of table manners.

I have spoken, ia another page, of the unlucky excla-
mation touching haddock, which caused the perpetual
exile of Poodle Byng from Belvoir. There was, however,
no offence meant. How different was the case with that
impudent coxcomb, Brummell, who managed to be the
copper-Captain of fashion iu London, when the true Cap-
tains were fighting their country's battles ! "When Brum-
mell was living almost on the charity of Mr. Marshall,
he was one of a dinner party at that gentleman's house,
whither he took with him, according to his most imperti-
nent custom, one of his favourite dogs. The " Beau " had,
during dinner, helped himself to the wing of a roasted
capon stuffed with truffles. He chose to fancy that the
wing was tough, and, deUcately seizing the end of it with
a napkin-covered finger and thumb, he passed it under
the table to his dog, with the remark, " Here, At out ! try
if you can get your teeth through this ; for I '11 be d — d
if I can." Not less ungratefully impudent was this
gentleman-beggar on another occasion. A French family
had given a dinner entirely on his account. It was per-
fect in its way. The ortolans came from Toulouse, the
salmon was from the waters in the neighbourhood of
Eouen, and the company most select. A friend, encoun-
tering him next day, asked how the dinner had gone off.
Brummell lifted up his hands, shook his head in a depre-
catory manner, and said, " Don't ask me, my good fel-
low; hut, poor man! he did his best."

280 TABLE TEAITS.

The Wo most recent examples of TaUe Traits of the
present centiuy, that I have met with, illustrate the two
extremes of society ; and as they refer to a period of not
ahove a month ago, they will serve, not inaptly, to close
this section of my series. The first example is that
aftbrded hy a dinner given at Boston, in Lincolnshire, to
twenty aged labourers. At this dinner, one of the gentle-
men donors of the feast, gave "the Ladies," and called on
the octogenarian Chairman to return thanks. The old
President, however, shook his head, with a mixed melan-
choly and cunning air, as if he too well knew there was
nothing to return thanks for. The venerable " Vice "
was then appealed to ; but his reply was, that the least
said about the subject of the toast would be the soonest
mended. At length, a sprightly old man of threescore
and ten was requested to respond, he having a gay look
about him which seemed warranting gallantry ; but ho
surprised the toast-giver by answering, that " as for
t' leddies, he 'd nowt to say ; for his part, he 'd never liked
'em." This unchivalrous sentiment awoke, at last, the
spirit of a strip of a lad who was only sixty-five ; and he
responded to the toast, with a touch of satire, however, in
his remarks, that left it uncertain whether he were so
much a champion of the fair sex, as the company had
expected to find in him. The second "Trait" of the
customs of this country is presented by the dinner given
in February of the present year, by Earl Granville, the
guests at which were Lord Aberdeen, the Bishop of
Oxford, and Mr. Bright. There were not such startling
contrasts at the reconciliation dinner which brought
Wilkes and Johnson together, as at Earl Granville's
unique banquet. The host and the Premier represented
— ^the first, smiling courtesy ; the second, the most frigid
severity of a freezing civility. But the strongest contrast
was in the persons of the Bishop and the " Friend:" — ^Dr.
"Wilberforce, highest of Churchmen, briefest of Preachers,

TAEIiE TEAITS OF THE LAST CEKTrET. 2S1

and twice as much, curled as tlie son of Clinias himself ;
■while Mr. Bright, with every hair as if a plummet
depended at the end of it, hating the Church, hut not
indifferent to petiis pates a la hraise, must have looked
like the vinegar of voluntaryism that would not mingle
with the oil of orthodoxy. To have made this banquet
complete, there should have been two more guests, — Dr.
Gumming and Dr. Cahill, with appropriate dishes before
each : — a plate of sweetbreads in front of the gentle apostle
of the Kirk ; and a bowl of blood-puddings opposite the
surpliced Priest who has gained a gloomy notoriety by the
" glorious idea," to which I have referred, of a massacre
of English heretic beef-eaters, by the light-dieted holders
of Catholic and continental bayonets. But Dr. Cahill,
it may be hoped, is something insane, or would he have
deliberately recorded, as he did the other day in the
" Tablet," that it were much better for Eomanists to
read inmioral works than the English Bible ? TTis excel-
lent reason is, that " the Church" easily forgives immo-
rality, but has no mercy for heresy. Well, well ; wo
should not like to catch a Confessor of this school sitting-
next our daughter at dinner, and intimating that Holy well-
street literature was better reading than the English
version of the Sermon on the Mount. — But let us sweeten
our imagination with a little Wine and Water.

WINE AND WATER.

Eaelt ages, and the oldest poets, confessed, that wine
was the gift of the gods to men. The latter would
appear to have ahused the gift, if we may believe Philo-
nides the physician, who wrote a treatise " On Perfumes
and Garlands " (Jiepl uipav kol STei^iJcai'). In this treatise
he asserts, that, when Bacchus brought the vine from
the Eed Sea into Greece, men drank to such excess, that
they became as beasts, and incapable of performing
manly duties. A party of these revellers were once
drinking by the sea-shore, when a sudden storm drove
them into a cave for shelter. They do not seem, how-
ever, to have been inveterate tipplers ; for, according to
PhUonides, they left their cups on the beach. When the
shower had passed, they found the wine in them mingled
with rain-water ; and, very much to their credit, they
liked the mixture so well, that they solemnly thanked
the " good genius" who had sent it. Hence, when wine
was served at Grecian repasts, the guests invoked this
good genius ; and when the turn came for wine mixed
with water, they acknowledged the benevolent inventor
by the name of Jupiter Saviour. I may take this oppor-
tunity to state, that, at one period, it was the fashion to
attend these drinking entertainments in a pair of " Alci-
biades," or boots which had been rendered popular by
being first worn by the curled son of, Clinias. Thus we
see, that in our fashion of conferring on boots the authori-

WINE AND WATEE. 283

ties of great names, we are doing nothing original ; and
that men used to call for their " Alcibiades," as they do
now for their " Wellingtons," " Bluchers," or " Alberts."
To revert, for a moment, to the question of wine and
water, I would state, that it has been discussed ia its
separate divisions by German writers, the substance of
whose opinions I will venture to give in verse, without
desiring, however, to be considered as endorsing every
sentiment in ftill. As French music-books say, it is an
"Air afceire,"

Do you ask wtat now glows

In this goblet of mine ?
Wine ! wine ! wine ! wine !

To the stream, do ye ask,

Shall my cnp-beaier go ?
No ! no 1 no ! no !
Let water its own frigid nature retain ;
Since water it is, let it water remain !
Let it ripple and run in meandering rills.
And set the wheels going in brook-sided mills.
In the desert, where streams do bnt scantily run,
If so much they 're aRoVd by the thirsty old sun.
There water may be, as it 's quaff'd by each man,
Productive of fan to a whole caravan.

But ask what now glows, &c

Yes, water, and welcome, in billows may rise.
Till it shiver its feathery crest 'gainst the sides ;
Or in dashing cascades it may joyously leap,
Or in silvery lakes lie entranced and asleep ; —
Or, e'en better stUl, in full showers of hope.
Let it gaily descend on some rich vineyard's slope.
That its sides may bear clusters of ripening bliss.
Which, in Autumn, shall melt into nectar like this,
I4ke this that now glows, &c.

Let it bear up the vessel that bringeth us o'er
Its freight of glad wine from some happier shore.
Let it run through each land that in ignorance lies :
It the Heathen wiU do very well to baptize.

284 TABLE TEAITS.

Yes, water slaU have ev'ry due praise of mine,
Whether salt, like the ocean, or fresh, like the Ehine.
Yes, praised to the echo pure water shall be.
But wine, wine alone is the nectar for me !

Tor 't is that which now glows

In this goblet of mine.
Wine! wine! wine! wine!

No attendant for me

To the river need go.
No ! no ! no ! no !

The various merits and uses of the respective liquids
' are fairly allowed in the ahove lines ; hut I may ohserve,
that wine apologists, generally, are sadly apt to forget,
that there are such things as conscience and to-morrow
morning. For their edification and use, I indite the
following colloquy, to he kept in mind, rather than sung,
at aU festivities where the "Aqua Fimpagmis" is held
in ahhorrence : — '

See the wine in the bowl.

How it sparkles to-night I
Tell us what can compete

W^ith that red sea of light ;
Which breathes forth a perfume

That deadens all sorrow.
And leaves us bless'd now,
(Conscience loquitur^
" With a headache to-morrow ! '

Where are spirits like those

That we find in the bowl.
Shedding joy round our brows,

Breathing peace to the soul ?
Our tongues feel the magic.

There our strains, too, we borrow :
We 're Apollos to-night,

(Conscience loquitur^
" To be songless to-morrow 1 "

"WTNE AND WATEE. 2S5

O, this rare inspiration !

How gay are the dreams
Of the thrice triple blest

■Who may quaff of thy streams 1
It expels from the heart

Sulky care, that old horror.
And tells laughter to-night

(Conscience, ashamed of the rhyme)
" To wake sadness to-morrow ! "

Drink deep, though there be

Thirstless fools, who may preach
Of the sins of the bowl, —

Do they act as they teach ?
If we 're sinners, what then I

As we 're not friends to sorrow.
We 'E he glad ones to-night,

(Conscience loquitur,)
" To be sad ones to-morrow ! "

Ah ! that was old Conscience :

Sim we 'U drown in the wine I
Plunge him in ! hold him down 1

Ah ! he dies ! — now the Nine
May, to write in his praise.

Prom our Helicon borrow.
He 's done talking to-night ;

(Conscience, from the bowl,)
" You shall hear me to-morrow 1 "

Finally, being on Pegasus, and he ambling along
througli this chapter of Wine and Water, I will take the
opportunity, as connected with my subject, of doing jus-
tice to a flower whose " capability," as Mr. Browne used
very properly to say, has been overlooked, — I mean the
tulip : —

Praise they who will the saucy vine,

With her thousand rings and her curls so fine I

But I fiU up

To the tulip-cup,

286 TiBIE TEAITS.

AH looking as though it were batted in wine.
Ah, show me the flower,
In vale or bower.
That looks half so well as this bowl of mine !
0, who this night wUl fail to fill up.
Or to sing in praise of the tulip-cup ?

Praise they who wiU the willow-tree.

With her drooping neck and her tresses free.

That bend to the brink

Of the brook, and drink
Of a %uid that never wiU do for me !

"While the tulip-cup

Is for ever held up.
As though she could drink for eternity.
And that is the very best bowl for me.
Who hate the sickly wilow-tree !

The water-lily praise who will :

Of water we know that she loves hef fill.

But what, pray, is she

To the tulip, that we
Have loved for so long, and love so well still ?

Ah I who doth not think her

A mere water-drinker.
That quaffs but such wine she can get from the riU ?
Then fill up to-night to the tulip tall.
Who holds forth her cups, and can drain them all !

See how naturally we drop out of tke subject of " Wine
and Water," into that of "Wine," to which we now,
reverently, yet joyously, address ourselves.

THE BIRTH OF THE YINE, AND WHAT
HAS COME OF IT.

The birth of the vine was in this wise. On the day
of the creation, the trees vied with each other in boasting;
and each exulted in the enjoyment of his own existence.
" The Lord himself," said the lofty cedar, " planted me, and
in me has he united stability and fragrance, strength and
durability." " Me," said the shade-spreading, palm, " hath
the beneficence of Jehovah appointed for a blessing,
joining together in me utHity and beauty." Then the
apple-tree spoke : "As a bridegroom among youths, so
am I resplendent among the trees of the woods." " And
I," said the myrtle, " stand among the lowly bushes, Hke
a rose among thorns." In this manner boasted they all,
the oUve and the fig ; yea, the pine even, and the
fir exulted.

The vine alone, in silence, stooped to the ground. " It
seems," said she to herself, " as if every thing were denied
me, — stem and branch, blossom and fruit ; but, such as I
am, I will hope and wait. Thus speaking, she sank to
the earth, and her branches wept.

But not long did she thus wait and weep ; for, behold,
cheerful man, the earthly god, drew nigh unto her. He
saw a weak plant, the plaything of the breeze, sinking
under its own weight, and pining for assistance. Touched
with compassionate feeling, he upheld it, and trained the
delicate tree over his own bower. More freely now

288 TABLE TEAI.TS,

sported the air among its branches. The warmth of the
sun penetrated the hard green berries, preparing therein
the delicious juice, — a drink for gods and men. Laden
with clustering grapes, the vine now bowed herself before
her lord, and the latter tasted of her refreshing sweets,
and named her his friend, his own grateful favourite. It
was now that the proud trees envied her, but many of
them lived on in sterility, whUe she rejoiced, full of gra^
titude at her slender growth, and patient humility ; and
' therefore it is, that it is given to her to make glad the
heart of sorrowing man, to elevate the cast-down spirit,
and to cheer the afflicted.

"Despair not," says Herder, who thus tells the old
traditionary story of the vine, — " Despair not, O thou
that art deserted, but endure patiently. Sweet streams
issue from unlikely sources ; and the feeble vine affords
the most potent draught in the world.''

Let us, however, turn from poetical tradition to prosaic
reality. The vine is, by birth, a Persian. Its cradle was
on the sunny slopes of the hiUy regions on the south
shores of the Caspian Sea. There, ia the Caucasus, and
in Cashmere, the wild vine stiU climbs and clings to the
very necks of the most towering trees. Its life-blood
in those regions is seldom turned to evil purpose. In
Caubul it is taken less in potions than in powder. The
Caubulese dry and grind it to dust, and eat thereof,
finding it a pleasant acid. This is half matter of taste
and half matter of inedicine, just as over-wearied diges-
tions in G-ermany drive their wretched owners into vine-
yards, to abstain from meat, and live, for a whUe, upon
raisins. Indeed, the vine was never meant entirely for
enjoyment. It is one of the most perfect of chymists ;
and if it offers grapes in clusters, its twigs afford car-
bonate of potash, serviceable for many purposes, and,
amon^ others, for correcting the acidity brought on by

BIETH 01' THE TIKE, AND WHAT HAS COME OF IT. 289

too free indulgence in the fruit, or in its expressed
liquid.

In the olden days, when the Patriarchs worshipped
Heaven in the " cathedral of immensity," Palestine was
renowned for the gloiy of its grapes. There were none
other to compare with them upon earth. When the
desert-treaders were waiting the return of their emis-
saries, whom they had sent from Kadesh-Bamea to
spy the Promised Land, their thirsty impatience was
exchanged for delight at beholding their agents re-appear,
bearing between them, upon poles, gigantic clusters, — the
near fountains whence their dried up souls might draw
new life and vigour. The grapes of Palestine are still
remarkable for their great size. Clusters are spoken of,
each of which exceeds a stone in weight ; and vines are
mentioned, whose stems measured a foot and a half in
diameter, and whose height reached to thirty feet ; while
their branches afforded a tabernacle of shade, to the extent
of thirty feet square. But it could not have been from
such a vine that the men from Kadesh-Barnea collected
the grapes which they could scarcely carry. The Welbeck
grapes which the Duke of Portland sent to the Marquess
of EocMngham, were of Syrian origin ; and these — on a
single bunch, weighing nineteen pounds, and measuring
three-and-twenty inches long, with a maximum diameter
of nearly twenty inches — ^were borne upon a pole a distance
of twenty miles, by four labourers ; two to carry, and two
to reUeve. So that the conveying grapes in this fashion
may have been more on account of their delicacy than of
then- weight. The Hampton Court vine, too, produces
clusters of great weight, and covers a space of not less
than 2,200 feet.

The vine has been figuratively employed as an emblem
01 fruitfulness, of security, and peace ; and no doubt can
exist of its having been ctdtivated at a very early period.
Noah planted the vine immediately after the Deluge;

290 TABLE TEAITS.

and, from the first thing planted, sin came again into the
world, bringing with it widely-extending consequences.
Bread and wine are mentioned in Genesis. Pharaoh's
chief butler dreamed of a vine with three branches ; and
the Israelites (in Numbers) complained that Moses and
Aaron had brought them out of Egypt into a dry and
barren land, wheare there were neither figs nor vines. So,
in after-years, the companions of Columbus sailed trem-
blingly with their calm Captain over trackless seas, and
murmured at him for bringing them from the olives and
vines of Spain, to the very confines of creation, where
terror reigned, and death sat enthroned.

Jacopo di Bergamo gives a singular account of the
reason which induced Noah to plant the vine. The
Patriarch did so, he says, because he saw a, goat in Sicily
eat some wild grapes, and afterwards fight with such
courage, that Noah inferred there must have been virtue
in the fruit. He planted a vine, therefore, and — ^where-
fore is not told — manured it with the blood of a lion, a
lamb, a swine, and a monkey, or ape. But this, perhaps,
only signifies that, by drinking wine, men become bold,
confiding or meek, filthy or obscene.

It is stated by Theodoret, that Noah himself, after
pressing the grapes, became intoxicated through inexpe-
rience, as he had been a water-drinker for sis centuries !
The sin of Lot is supposed to have been committed, not
merely under the influences of wine, but of a maddening
and drugged, draught. The evil power of wine is well
illustrated by the story of the Monk, to whom Satan
offered a choice of sins, — ^incest, murder, or drunkenness.
The poor Monk chose the last, as the least of the three;
and, when he was drunk, he committed the other two.

Commentators pronounce our rendering under the sin-
gle word "wine," the thirteen distinct Hebrew terms
used in the Bible to distinguish between wines of dijffer-
ent sorts, ages, and condition, as a defect of great magni-

BIEXH OF THE TIKE, AlTD 'WHAT HAS COMB OF IT. 291

tude 5 and no doubt it is so. The knowledge of mixing
wines appears to have been extensively applied by the
ancient people ; and it is said of the beautiful Helen, that
she learned in Egypt the composition of the exhilarating,
or rather, stupefying, ingredients which she mixed in the
bowl, together with the wine, to raise the spirits of such
of her guests as were oppressed with grief. I may notice,
too,, here, that our word shrub, or syrup, is an Eastern
word. In Turkey, a sMrub-jee is simply a " wine-seUer."

Yes, despite the Prophet, the Turks drink wine more
than occasionally, and under various names. Tavemier
speaks of a particular preparation of the grape drunk by
the Grand Seignior, ki company with the ladies of the
seraglio j and a similar beverage, it is conjectured, was
quaffed by Belshazzar and his concubines out of the holy
vessels, and was offered in vain to the more scrupulous
Daniel. It was a rich and royal drink, made strong by
the addition of drugs; and the object of drinking the
potent mixture was the same as that which induced Con-
rad Scriblerus and the daughter of Gaspar Barthius to
live for a whole year on goat's milk and honey. Either
mixture was better than that of the Persians, who " for-
tified" their wines, or syrup of sweet wines, by adding to
them the very perilous seasoning of nux vomica. But
none of these were so curious as the "wine-cakes" eaten
by Mr. Buckingham : these were, I suppose, made of wine
preserves. But pure wine may be eaten, or rather, be
rendered harder than any of our common food. Thus we
hear of Russian troops being compelled, in very hard
winters, to cut out their rations of wine from the cask
with a hatchet.

I think it is the renowned Dissenter, Toplady, who
remarks, that the only sarcastic passage in Scripture is to
be found in the cutting speech of Elisha to the Priests of
Baal : " Is not Baal a god, seeing that he eateth much
meat?" There is, however, another ironical passage, in
V 2

292 TABLE TEAITS.

reference to wine. " Give Shechar unto tim who is ready
to perisli," is the satirical speech of Lemuel's mother,
who warns her royal son against the deceitful influences
of intoxicating hererages, representing them as especially
destructive to those who are charged with the govern-
ment of nations ; and then ironically points to the man
who fooHshly concludes, that in the sweet or strong drink
he may hury all memory of the cares and anxieties brought
upon him by his own profligacy.

There is, however, a difference of opinion touching the
spirit in which the last words quoted from Scripture are
used. The Eabbins interpret the passage as a command
to administer wine to the individual about to suffer
death. Thus wine mingled with myrrh was ofiered to
One of whom the Gospel records, that He refused what
His enemies presented.

The custom of offering doomed criminals a last earthly
draught of refreshment is undoubtedly one of considerable
antiquity. The right of offering wine to criminals on then-
passage to the scaffold was often a privilege granted to reli-
gious communities. In Paris, the privilege was held by the
convent of PiUes-Dieu, the Nims of which kept wine pre-
pared for those who were condemned to suffer on the gibbet
of Montfaucon. The gloomy procession halted before the
gate of the monastery, the criminal descended from the
cart, and the Nuns, headed by the Lady Abbess, received
him on the steps with as much, perhaps more heartfelt
ceremony than if he had been a King. The poor wretch
was led to a crucifix near the church door, the feet
whereof he humbly kissed. He then received, from the
hands of the Superior, three pieces of bread, (to remind
him of the Trinity,) and one glass of wine (emblem of
Unity). The procession then resumed its dread way to
the scaffold.

Elie Berthet tells us of a poor wretch, who, on being
offered the usual refreshment, quietly swallowed the wine,

BIETH or THE TIITE, AND WHAT HAS COME OF IT. 293

and coolly put the bread in his pocket. When again in
the cart, his observant Confessor asked him his reason for
the act. "I suppose, Father," answered the moribund,
" that the good sisters furnished me with the bread that
it may serve me in paradise ; on earth, at all events, it
can no longer be of use to me." "Be of good cheer,"
said another Confessor, who was encouraging a criminal
on the Greve ; " be of good cheer. To-night you will sup
in paradise." " Tenez, mon Fere" answered the poor
fellow; " allez-y-vous a ma place ; car, pour moi, je n'ai
pas faim." This incident has been made good use of by
the "ballad" writers both of England and France.

"Bowl-yard," St. Giles' s-in-the-Fields, preserves in its
name the memory of a similar custom in England. This
yard, or alley, adjacent to the church, is a portion of the
site of the old Hospital for Lepers, the garden of which
was a place of execution. Lord Cobham, under Henry V.,
and Babington and his accomphces, for conspiring against
Elizabeth, were executed here. Stow tells us that, " at
this hospital, the prisoners conveyed from the city of
London toward Tyburn, there to be executed for treason,
felonies, or other trespasses, were presented with a great
howl of ale, thereof to drink at their pleasure, (?) as to be
their last refreshment in this life." In later days, the
criminals were sometimes supplied by their friends from
the pubUc-houses on the line of road. In one case, a
convict happily tarried drinking for a longer space of
time than usual. The rope was just round his neck,
when the axrival of a reprieve saved him. Had he drunk,
a glass less, he would have been hanged a mbment
sooner ; and society would thus have been deprived of his
valuable services. He was a luckier man than the sad-
dler in Ireland, who, on his way to the gibbet, refused
the ale and wine offered him on the road, who was
accordingly very rapidly dispatched, and for whom a
reprieve arrived a minute too late for him to profit by it.

294 TABLE TEAIT3.

Hence the proverb, applied by those who press reluctant
people to drink, " Ah, now go away wid you. Ye 're like
the obs'inate saddler, who was hanged for refusing his
liquor." It certainly was not a custom with Irish con-
victs to decline the " thrink," before trial or after. " The
night before Larry was stretch'd," is a slang lyric, gra-
phically illustrative of the grace with which Irish crimi-
nals took leave of life. The most singular thing, how-
ever, connected with the popular lay in question, is, that
it was written by a Clergyman. But, at the time of its
production, such authorship excited no surprise in the
literary public. The " cloth" was still of the quality of
that in which Fielding's Newgate Chaplain walked ; and
he, it wiU be remembered, was a pious gentleman, who
candidly avowed that he was the rather given to indulge
in punch, as that was a liquor nowhere spoken against in
Scripture !

But it was not English or Irish Chaplains, of the olden
time, who stood by themselves in their respect for good
liquor. If that reverend and rubicund gentleman, Wal-
ter de Mapes, wrote the Ijest Latin drinking-song that
Bacchanalian inspiration ever produced, so did a German
Prelate preach the best sermon on the same text. I
allude to the Bishop of Triers, or Treves. Here is an
odour, caught by the way, of the fall bottle pf counsel
which he poured out to his hearers : —

" Brethren, to whom the high privilege of repentance
and penance has been conceded, you feel the sin of abusing
the gifts of Providence. But, abtigttm non tollit usvm.
It is written, 'Wine maketh glad the heart of man.'
It follows, then, that to use wine moderately is our duty.
Now there is, doubtkss, none of my male hearers who
cannot drink his four bottles without affecting Ms brain.
Let him, however, — ^if by the fifth or sixth bottle he no
longer knoweth his own wife, — ^if he beat and kick his
children, and look on his dearest friend as an enemy, —

BIETH OF THE TINIi, ASB 'WHAT HAS OOME OE IT. 295

refrain from an excess displeasing to God and man, and
which, renders him contemptible in the eyes of his fel-
lows. But whoever, after drinking his ten or twelve
bottles, retains his senses sufficiently to support his tot-
tering neighbour, or manage his household affairs, or
execute the commands of his temporal and spiritual supe-
riors, let him take his share quietly, and be thankful for
his talent. Still, let him be cautious how he exceed this ;
for man is weak, and his powers limited. It is but seldom
that our kind Creator extends to any one the grace to be
able to drink safely sixteen bottles, of which privilege he
hath held me, the meanest of his servants, worthy. And
since no one can say of me that I ever broke out in
canseless rage, or failed to recognise my household friends
or relations, or neglected the performance of my spiritual
duties, I may, with thankfulness and a good conscience,
use the gift which hath been intrusted to me. And
you, my pious hearers, each take modestly your allotted
portion; and, to avoid all excess, follow the precept of
St. Peter,—' Try all, and stick by the best !' "

The sermon is not a bad illustration of what was, and
remains, historical fact. The first Archbishop of May-
ence was the Englishman Boniface ; and most of his suc-
cessors might have been characterized by his name.
They were more powerful than the Emperors, and more
stately than Moguls. The Canons of the Cathedral, sup-
ported by its enormous revenues, Uved a jovial life. The
Pope, indeed, reproved them for their worldly and luxu-
rious habits ; but they uproariously returned for answer,
" We have no more wine than is needed for the Mass ;
and not enough to turn our mills with !"

Good Hving, as it was erroneously called, was certainly,
at one time, an imiversal observance in Germany, when
the sole wish of man was, that he might have short
sermons and long puddings. When this wish prevailed,

296 TABLE TBAITS.

every dining-room had its faulbett, or sot's couch, in one
corner, for the accommodation of the first couple of guests
who might chance to be too drunk to he removed.
Indeed, m German village-inns, the most drunken guests
were, in former days, by far the best off; for, while they
had the beds allotted them, as standing in most need of
the same, the guests of every degree, -whether rich or
poor, the perfectly sober — wherever such phenomena were
to be found — and those not so intoxicated but they could
stagger out of the room, aU lodged with the cows among
the straw.

Probably, no country on the earth' presented such
scenes, arising from excessive drinking, as were witnessed
in Saxony and Bohemia, a few generations back. These
scenes were so commonly attended by murder, or followed
by death, that it was said to be better for a man to fall
among the thickest of his enemies fighting, than among
his friends when drinking. There were deadly brawls ia
taverns, deadly drunken feuds in the family circle, and
not less deadly contentions in the streets. When the
city-gates were closed at night, the crowds of drunkards,
issuing to their homes in the suburbs, were met by as
dense and drunken a crowd, returning from their revels in
the country. And then came the insulting motion, the
provoking word, the hard blow, and the harder stab.
Then feU the wounded and the dead ; then rose the
shrieks of women and of children, and, loud above them,
the imprecations and blasphemies born in the wine-sodden
brains of men. Suddenly, a shot or two is fired from the
walls, right into the heaving mass below. And then
ensue the flying of the people, and the venting of impo-
tent rage from the rash and resolute. But, gradually,
the two opposing streams glide through each other, the
gates are at length closed ; and, by the light of the moon,
on the almost deserted esplanade, may be observed.

BIETH OP TKE VIKE, AITD WHAT HAS COME OF IT. 297

stretched on the ground, some half-dozen human forms.
Some of these are dead, some are still drunken and help-
less, and hoth equally imcared for.

This is no overdrawn picture of an ancient German
period. It is on record that once, on the hanks of the
Bohemian Sazawa, a party of husbandmen met for the
purpose of drinking twelve casks of wine. There were
ten of them who addressed themselves to this feat ; but
one of the ten attempting to retire from the contest
before any of his fellows, the remaining nine seized,
bound him, and roasted him aUve on a spit. The mur-
derers were subsequently carried to the palace for judg-
ment ; but the Duke's funeral was taking place as they
entered the hall, and the Princes who administered jus-
tice were aU so intoxicated, that they looked upon the
matter in the light of a joke that might be compensated
for by a slight fine.

There was a joyous revelry at that time in every direc-
tion. A father would not receive a man for a son-in-law
who could not drink ; and in Universities the conferring of
a degree was always followed by a carouse, the length of
which was fixed, by College rules, as not to exceed eight
hours' duration. Yet, during this generally dissolute
period, a strange custom was prevalent at the tables of
Nuremberg. In all well-regulated households, there
used to hang a Uttle bell beneath the dining-table ; and
this bell was struck by the master of the family, if he
were sober enough, whenever any one uttered an unseemly
phrase.

Even so, in public, a voice of indignation was some-
times raised against the profligacy of the , period. The
voice to the people at large was as the bell to the guests
at Nuremberg. Its effects who can tell ? It may have
induced Luther to be content with dignified VirgU rather
than with unclean Plautus; it may have driven the
Monk Schwartz from the refectory to the alembic ; and it

298 TABIB TEAITS.

may have called G-atem'berg from the brutalities of the
camp to the wonders of the printing-press. In the two
latter cases, the consequences bear a very tipsy appear-
ance ; for it was a soldier who invented printing, and a
Monk who first manufactured gunpowder !

Let us not hasten to condemn our fellows of the olden
time and distant land. Manners as fearfully outraging
prevailed but very recently among young Englishmen.
M. de Warenne, a French officer in our Indian army,
describes the manners and customs there prevalent as
any thing but edifying. In his " Inde-Anglaise," he
describes himself, on one occasion, as being disinclined
for study, and consequently joining a party of his com-
rades who were at the moment occupied in an unreserved
enjoyment of the pleasures of the table. They were from
fifteen to twenty in number, married and single, but all
young, full of hope, good prospects, and gaiety. Deep
were the libations made by this riotous company, seated
at a festive board in the open air, looked down upon by a
brilliant moon, and gently fanned by the evening breeze.

"While the attendant servant," says the author,
" poured out, with Indian profusion, fresh supplies of tea,
coffee, beer, punch, and grog, a dense vapour rose from
our cigars, and joyous shouts rang from every lip at
the conclusion of songs, bacchanalian and anacreontic.
Toasts succeeded each other rapidly, alternately exciting
the laughter or approbation of the ^arousers. One of
them caused in me, at the time, a singular impression.
A young, wild-brained fellow, in pouring out a bumper,
called on us to fill our glasses, in order to sanction the
strange wish of a rash ambition,^-' A bloody war, and a
sickly season!'"

The blasphemous sentiment, as M. de Warenne rightly
terms it, was drunk with enthusiasm ; and the gay and
thoughtless drinkers had yet the cup to their lips, when
one of them was stricken with the cholera, the presence

BrETH 01' THE VUTE, AlTD 'WHAT HAS COME OE IT. 299

of wliich. in camp was hardly known ; — ^the next day
the funeral salute was fired over his grave. The author
adds, that the music played on returning from the funeral
was joyously and daily hummed by the daily diminishing
survivors. He says that there was a mockery in the
waltzes they continued to dance ; for death was also daily
decreasing their orchestra. The stricken^ we are told,
felt themselves relieved from further anxiety, recovered
their temporarily shaken self-possession, and died with
indifference. The strong who lived are described as, for
the most part, diverting their thoughts, outraging decency,
and defying God, hy composing or chanting songs whose
inspiration certainly savours of hell. Here is a specimen
of one of these devil's canticles, roared over wine, to
frighten away the cholera : —

L
"We meet 'neath the sounding rafter.
And the walls around are bare ;
As they shout back onr peals of laughtETj

It seems as the dead were there.
Then stand to yOui glasses ! — steady !
We drink 'fore our comrades' eyes ;
One cup to the dead already j
Hurrah for the next that dies 1

n.

"Not here are the goblets glowing,

Not here is the vintage sweet;
'T is cold, as our hearts are growing.

And dark as the doom we meet.
But stand to your glasses ! — steady !

And soon shall our pulses rise ;
One cup to the dead already ;

Hurrah for the next that dies I

m.

" There 's many a hand that 's shaking.
And many a cheek that 's sunk;
But soon, though our hearts are breaking,
They '11 bran with the wine we 've drunk.

300 TABLE TEAITS.

Then stand to your glasses ! — steady !

'Tis here the revival lies ;
Quaff a cup to the dead already ;

Hurrah for the next that dies !

IV.

" Time was, when we laugh'd at others.

We thought we were wiser then -.
Ha! ha! let them think "of their mothers.

Who hope to see them again.
No ! stand to your glasses ! — steady 1

The thoughtless is here the wise ;
One cup to the dead already ;

Hurrah for the next that dies !

V.
" Not a sigh for the lot that darkles,
Not a tear for the friends that sink ;
We'E fall 'mid the wine-cup's sparkles.

As mute as the wine we drink.
Come ! stand to your glasses ! — steady 1

'T is this that the respite buys ;
One cup to the dead already ;
Hurrah for the next that dies !

VI.
" Who dreads to the dust returning ?
Who shrinks from the sahle shore.
Where the high and haughty yearning

Of the soul can sting no more ?
No ! stand to your glasses ! — steady !

This world is a world of lies !
One cup to the dead already ;
Hurrah for the next that dies !

VII.

" Cut off from the land that bore us,

Betray'd by the land we find.
When the brightest are gone before us.

And the dullest are most behind, —
Stand ! stand ! to your glasses !^ — steady I

'Tis all we have left to prize !
One cup to the dead already ;

Hurrah for the next that dies 1"

BIETH OF THE TINE, A2fD -WHAT HAS COME OP IT. 301

After this, the most rigid examiner of public morals
in all countries need not exclusively frown on the old
Germans, nor on their profane canticle, the burthen of
which is : —

" Gaudeamiis, igitur, juvenes dam sumus !
Post jucundam juventutem.
Fast molestam senectutem,
Nos hatelit, nos hatebit, nos haieiit tumulus!"

There is, however, more reason, and healthy sentiment,
and pure principle, in such lines as the following, —
extracted from "Walter Savage Lander's " Last Fruit off
an Old Tree," — ^than in reams of such fiery invocations to
quaff deeply as those cited above. Hear the old man : —

" The chrysolites and mhies Bacchus brings,

To crown the feast where swells the broad-veiu'd brow,
Where maidens blnsh at what the minstrel sings.
They who have courted, may court now.
" Bring me a cool alcove, the grape uncrush'd.
The peach of pulpy cheek and down mature :
Where ev'ry voice, but bird's or child's, is husht.
And ev'ry thought, like the brook nigh, runs pure."

There was a Per.sian sage, whose philosophy was of a
different complexion from that of the eloquent morahst of
"the old garden near Bath." " In what can I best assist
thee?" demanded the Minister, Nizam-al-Mulk, as he
warmly greeted his friend, Omar Keyoomee. " Place me,"
said Omar, enamoured of poetry and ease, "where my
life may pass without care or annoyance, and where wine,
in abundance, may inspire my muse." A pension was
accordingly assigned him in the fertile district of Nisha-
pour, where Omar lived and died. His tomb still exists,
and Mr. J. B. Fraser, in his " Persia," informs us that he
heard Omar's story told over his grave by a brother
rhymester, and a most congenial spirit. The system of
Omar was explained by himself, in something after this
fashion : —

302 TABLE TEAITS.

I ask not for much : let the miser seek wealth ;

Let the proud sigh for titles and fame : —
All the riches I ask are a fair share of health.

And the hope of a true poefs name,
let the flatterer talk of his worth to the Shah,—

Of his greatness, too, all the day long ;—
I envy them not, for I love better far

To pay my poor tribute in song.

A kaftan of honour ! a gem &om the King 1

To be gain'd in the field or divan?
Ah I rather around me the bright, mantle fling

Of the poets of gay Laristan.
Let the gems be for those of the glittering crowd,

"Who would die, the Shah Inshah to please ;
But I'm not ambitious, I never was proud,

I sigh but for sherbet and ease.

Do I wish for command in dark history's page.

Do I long in fond record to shine ?
Yes, let me have sway, till the last sigh of age.

Over cohorts of old Shiraz wine.
And as for renown, it may be very well.

Bat Keyoomee the honour wiU wave ;
Contented, if some brother rhymester will tdl

Keyoomee's glad life, o'er his grave.

THE MAKING AND MARRING OF WINE.

It used to be said of the old learned and liquor-loving
Germans, tliat they did not care what Latin they spoke,
so long as it was Latin; nor what sort of wine they
drank, so long as it was wine. I have read somewhere of
a feudal German Baron becoming intoxicated upon pious
principles. He was seated, with his wife at his side, at
the centre of his own table, presiding at a banquet. He
had drunk till he had scarcely power left to carry the
goblet up to his ever thirsty Ups. The Prau Baroninn
had repeatedly remonstrated, in whispers, with her lord ;
who repUed, that he must needs drink when toasts were
given, or his want of faith would be marked by his guests.
He was about to raise a full goblet to his beard, when his
lady, overturning, as if by accident, the cluster of lights
which iQuminated the board, begged of her consort
to fling his wine away upon the floor; adding, "It is
dark; nobody will see you." "Nay," said the orthodox
Baron, solemnly, "God sees me!" and therewith he
finished his draught, and was soon after conveyed to his
couch, tmder such benison as the Chaplain could give,
who congratulated his master upon the flavour of his
wine, and the strength of his principles !

In no country in the world has more wine been drunk
than in Germany ; and no where has adulteration thereof
been practised so systematically. " Vaticana libis, hibis
venenum," says Martial, in the sixth book of his Epi-
grams. For "Vaticana" read "Germmica;" and the

304 TABLE TEAITS.

line had, at one time, as fitting an application. The
method pursued appears to have been of classical deriva-
tion; and the Germans, like the Eomans, adulterated
their wine with lead. It has been a matter of vexation
to Teutonic scholars, that they have never been able to
discover the name of the ingenious person who first
realized the deadly idea of employing lead in the adultera-
tion of wine. All that they can say of him is, that he
was very wicked, but decidedly clever.

The Eoman wine-merchants treated the matter in a
business-like way. Lead arrested the acetous fermenta-
tion of wine, did not alter its colour, and did improve its
taste. This was all that was desirable, as regarded them
as merchants. If the beverage gave death, by slow or
speedy means, to those who drank, that was an afiair
which concerned the imbibers, their medical men, and their
families. They were ignorant and godless Heathens, of
course, who committed this crime ; and as nothing like it-
has ever been known as a characteristic of some of the
professors of a better dispensation, — ^why, our righteous
indignation may be intense. One excuse, indeed, may be
ofiered for the old Eomans. " At lover's perjuries," as they
were told, "Jove himself condescended to laugh;" and,
if so, they might feel canonicaUy certain, that Mercury
would not call them to account, but rather applaud their
proficiency in cheating. But Galen was more just than
the gods of either the Greek or Roman mythology, and
sternly denounces the tricks at which the son of Maia
would have smiled.

The same ancients were accustomed to boil new wine
in metal vessels ; and, when the quantity had been reduced
by the process, to add sea-water and bad wine, and send
the mixture to market as something that would make
the very eyes of Bacchus twinkle with delight. A pro-
cess not less distasteful, if less deadly, was that of boiling
lime and plaster of Paris in inferior wine. The former

THE MAKING AND MAEEING OF WIHTS, 305

was supposed to add an intoxicating quality to the mix-
ture, whicli must liave been as detestable as " Masdeu."
To this day, certain wines of the Mediterranean are
subjected to a similar process ; and, perhaps, if lime be
judiciously used, the results may not be very injurious.
It corrects acidity ; but too much of it would enable the
drinker to find out, as Falstaff did, that there was " lime
in the sack." We are wise in our generation, in employ-
ing carbonate of soda for this purpose, rather than lime,
slaked or unslaked; and we also do well to reject gypsum,
— a compound of sulphuric acid and lime, and which is
seldom procurable ia a sufficiently pure state to authorize
its being employed. The rejection of plaster of Paris,
for the purpose of improving wine, is, however, more
general than universal. After all, it is not worse than
oalciaed shells, and is innocuous when compared with the
use of sugar of lead.

The Roman law was not levelled against the adultera-
tion of wine; it no more controlled the sale or manu-
facture, than, in Thevenot's days, the Tunisian Govern-
ment interfered with the sale of wine at Tunis, which
was left to slaves, who did with it as they Uked, for their
own profit, and the destruction of iufidel stomachs. It
was otherwise in Germany, where Diets were assembled
to discuss what was, in truth, no unimportant matter;
the members of which began to think, that if wine was
worth having, it was worth providing for its purity.
For centuries Governments made laws, but bad wiae was
drunk iu spite of them.

Beokmann gives it as his opinion, that wines cannot
be poisoned by gypsum; but that is more readily said
than proved. The ancients clarified thpir wiae with
it ; but they did so at the expense of a portion of the
spirituous part. Old ordinances against the adulteration
of wiae, in Brussels, by vitriol, quicksilver, and lapis
calatninariSi — and in France, by lead and litharge, — may

X

306 TABID TEAITS.

still be read as curiosities, but they have no present
application.

A German Monk, named Martin Bayr, is damned to
everlasting fame, as the first who adulterated wines
within the territory of the Kaiser. Pickheimer, the
friend of Albert Durer, is particularly inveterate against
Bayr and his followers in evU. The indignation of the
lover of pure wine is carried to an incredible extent. He
narrates, in a rapt fury, the consequences of drinking Inju-
rious wines ; beginning with an assurance, that adulterated
wine keeps the married childless, and adding, by a sort
of bathos, that ' it causes certain inward pains, " than
which none can be more excruciating." He mentions
many ingredients employed, and adverts to some, "the
names of which I should be ashamed to mention;" and
then he calls for vengeance on the offenders, both in this
world and the next. "You hang the counterfeiters of
the public coin," says he ; " do not these miscreants,
whose misdeeds have caused indignant Nature to check
the growth of our grapes, deserve something worse ? Cast
their accursed beverage, I say, into the sewers, and them-
selves into the flames : and so may Martin Bayr and his
disciples perish in this world, and inherit everlasting
damnation in the next ! "

Adulteration, however, stiU went on, until the penalty
of death, and confiscation of property, was levelled against
the employment of sulphur and bismuth, — used by the
most noble of wine-makers to sweeten their spoiled and sour
commodity. Offenders, however, again grew bold. The
tribunals treated them leniently. First, fines were levied ;
then came confiscation of property, imprisonment, and
hard labour ; next, banishment : and none of these courses
meeting the evil, the Judges at length cut off the head
of an incorrigible criminal, Ehrni of Erlingen ; and, for a
while, terrified the whole brotherhood of wine-spoilers
into a temporary observance of honesty.

THE MAKiya AND MAEEING OF WINE. 307

Tte next struggle which occurred in Germany, was
between those who applied tests to detect the presence of
metals, and those who invented processes to defy them.
It was a scientific struggle between two species of assas-
sins,— those who swiftly killed by brewing poisonous wine,
and the physicians who racked their brains to invent
detective tests, and save their patients for a slower process
of extinction. This was very rudely said by rude people,
who looked upon themselves as the victims sought for by
two contending parties, — the distillers on one side, and
the doctors on the other.

The use of milk by the Greeks was, probably, not for
adulterating, but for refining, their wines. Isinglass is at
present generally employed for the last-mentioned purpose.

As it is the tendency of the world to improve, so the
not inconsiderable world of adulterators in England has
profited, like philosophers, by the discoveries of those who
have preceded them. A mixture of strong port, rectified
spirit. Cognac brandy, and rough cider, can be concocted
into what is called " fine old crusted port." It costs the
maker about sixteen shillings a gallon, and is sold retail
at five shillings a bottle. Sloe-juice is another ingredient,
and poisonous tinctures give it a seductive hue. Powder
of catechu does for it what hair-powder does for the indi-
vidual,— gives a crust of antiquity to secure for it the vene-
ration of the ignorant. A decoction of Brazil-wood, and
a little alum, will impart to the corks the requisite air of
corresponding age ; and these the credulous gaze at and
believe.

"Madeira, neat as imported," is the definition of a beve-
rage cleverly manufactured much nearer Fenohurch-street
than Funchal. Home-made Madeira is a compound of
bad port, Vidonia, that African nastiness called " Cape,"
sugar-candy, and bitter almonds ; and the Vidonia, which
is an ingi-edient in itself, often adulterated with cider and
rum ; and a little carbonate of soda, " to contumace the
X 2

308 TABLE TEAITS.

appetite's acidities." The lowest and cruellest insult to
human taste and stomachs is, perhaps, the adulteration of
Cape. It is had enough in itself ; hut Cape, with some-
thing worse in it, is only fit for the thirsty hounds of
Pluto. Gooseherry, passed off as Champagne, is an
impostor, and even with strawherries in it, to give it ^n
aristocratic pinkness, it is still a deception ; hut, compared
with Cape, even in its hest condition, gooseberry may he
imbibed without very much disgust.

A fracas between the waiters and their employers at
the last Lord-Mayor's dinner, betrayed another pleasant
process regarding wine. The attendants in question
declared that, after many hours' toU, they had not had a
glass even out of a dovered bottle. They were as much
surprised when the Magistrate asked the meaning of
" dovering," as the sailor was, when he stood before a Lord
High Chancellor ignorant of the signification of " 'baft
the binnacle." A complaisant Ganymede enhghtened the
darkened mind of the metropolitan Cadi: '■^Dovering"
said he, "is the collecting of three-quarter emptied
decanters from the dinner-table, and re-decantering the
same, serving it up as freshly uncorked." Dover has the
bad reputation of being the locality where this process
was first invented.

One of the most ingenious — perhaps we should say, one
of the most scientific — tricks that we have heard of, in
connexion with wine-doctoring, proves that the modern
chymical brewers of superior beverages, which seem what
they are not, are vastly superior to the mere experiment-
alists of former days. In the royal cellars of Carlton
House, there was enshrined, if we may so speak, a small
quantity of wine which, like the gems worn by the Irish
lady, was both " rich and rare.'' It was only produced by
George IV. when he had around him his most select and
wittiest friends. The precious deposit gradually dimi-
nished ; year by year, as in the case of the famous sha-

THE MAKING AND MAEEING OF WINE. 309

green skin of the Freneli novelist Balzac, it grew less*
until, at last, a couple of dozen bottles only were left,
gleaming at the bottom of their bins like gems in a mine,
and full of liquid promise to those who needed the especial
comfort which it was their duty to impart. These, how-
ever, were left so long unasked for, that the gentlemen of
the King's suite who had the control of the grape depart-
ment, deemed them forgotten, and at their own mirthful
table drank them all but two, with infinite delight to
themselves, and to the better health of their master.
They soon found, however, that there was " garlic in the
flowers," as the Turkish proverb has it ; and their embar-
rassment was not small, when the King, giving his orders
for a choice dinner on a certain night, intimated his
desire that a good supply of his favourite wine should
grace the board. In Courts, " to hear is to obey ;'' and
the officials who had drunk the wine, at once resorted to
an eminent firm, well-skUled to give advice in such deli-
cate wine-cases. The physician asked but for a sample
bottle, and to be told the exact hour at which the
favourite draught would be asked for. This was com-
plied with, and in due time a proper amount of the
counterfeit wine was forwarded to Carlton House, and
there broached and drunk with such encomiums, that the
officers who were in the secret had some difficulty in
maintaining an official gravity of countenance. The
brewer of the new wine was certainly a first-rate artist ;
and if he ever achieved knighthood and a coat-of-arms, I
would give him a "Bruin" for his crest, and, "The
drink! the drink ! dear Hamlet!" for his device. This
anecddte, I may farther notice, has often been told, and
nearly as often been discredited ; but I am assured by an
officer of the household, who speaks " avec connaissanee
de fait" that it is substantially true.

One of the merits of the wine above mentioned con-
sisted in its great age. There has, indeed, always been a

310; TABLE TEAITS.

sort of mania for wine that bears the load of years. But
this rage is pronounced by Cyrus Bedding to be one of
the most ridiculous errors of modern epicurism. The
"bee's wing," the "thick crust on the bottle," the "loss
of strength," and so on, — all these are declared by the
best judges to be nothing more than forbidding manifes-
tations of decomposition, and the disappearance of the
very best qualities of the wine. Many years ago, I made
a "note" on this subject, but am now unable to recollect
from what work, nor can I say whether the following
remarks on the qualities of wine were made by the
author of an original work, or by a reviewer commenting
thereon. Such as they are, however, they are not without
value.

" The age of maturity,'' says the writer, " for exporta-
tion from Oporto, is said to be the second year after the
vintage ; probably sometimes not quite so long. Our
wine-merchants keep it in wood from two to six years
longer, according to its original strength, &c. Surely
this must be long enough to do all that can be done by
keeping it. What crude wine it must be to require even
this time to ameliorate it ! the necessity for which must
arise either from some error in the original manufacture,
or a false taste, which does not relish it till time has
changed its original characteristics.

" Port, like all other wines, ripens in a shorter, or longer,
time, according to its lightness, or its strength, the-
quality of the grapes, according to the fermentation they
have undergone, and the portion of brandy that has been
added to it. Also one cellar wUl forward, wine much
sooner than another. Sound good port is generally in
perfection when it has been from three to five years in
the wood, and from one to three in bottle. '

" Ordinary port is a very uncleansed fretful wine ; and
we have been assured by wine-merchants of good taste,
accurate observation, and extensive experience, that the

THE MAKIKO AKD MAEEINQ OF WINE. 311

test port is rather impoverished than improved by being;
kept in bottle longer than two years ; that is, supposing it
to have been previously from two to four years in the cask
in this country; observing that all that the outrageous
advocates for vin passe really know about it is that sherry
is yellow, and port is Hack ; and that if they drink (more
than) enough of either of them, according to the colours,
it wiU make them drunk.

" White wines, especially sherry and Madeira, being
more perfectly fermented and thoroughly fined before
they are bottled, if kept in a cellar of uniform tempera-
ture, are not so rapidly deteriorated by age.

" The temperature of a good cellar is nearly the same
throughout the year. Double doors help to preserve
this. It must be dry, and be kept as clean as possible.

" The art of preserving wines is to prevent them
from fretting, which is done by keeping them in the same
degree of heat and careful working, in a cellar where they
will not be agitated by the motion of carriages passing.
If persons wish to preserve the fine flavour of their wines,
they ought on no account to permit any bacon, chee.^e,
onions, potatoes, or cider, in the wine-cellars ; for if there
be any disagreeable stench in the cellar, the wine will
indubitably imbibe it ; consequently, instead of being
fragrant, and charming to the nose and palate, it wOl be
extremely disagreeable.

" It must be well-known that almost all our home-made
wines, for public sale, are made, and suffered to cool, in
leaden vats. Nothing can be more injurious or detri-
mental to health. Every chymist is aware that any
vegetable acid that comes in contact with lead, and is
suffered to remain only a few hours, produces what we
call ' sugar of lead,' — a most deadly poison. How many
there are that complain that cider wiU not agree with
them ! and several who cannot take even a wine-glass
full without vomiting almost immediately. They know

312 TABLE TBAIXS.

not the reason ; and thus many are prevented from
taking a naost deligMfal beverage in warm weather;
while others are labouring under its baneful influence.
Often do we see servants run for vinegar in a pewter or
publican's pot; and the answer we receive when cor-
recting them for the same is, — ^they have often done
the same without any serious consequence. May be so ;
but if vinegar, or any other vegetable acid, as before said,
be suffered to remain in such vessels only a short time,
the health and constitution must suffer from the acid so
taken ; and we will venture to say that almost aU parar
lytic affections are caused by persons, predisposed to such
attacks, drinking water impregnated with lead. For if
there be any carbonic acid in the water, which there
most assuredly is in every kind, a carbonate is thus
formed, just as injurious as the acetate (sugar of lead) ;
and where shall we find a cistern in London that is
not made of this pernicious, yet highly useful, material ?"
The consideration of these subjects, when drinking
home-made wines, (if, indeed, there he people bold enough
to venture on such an experiment,) or the other beverages
mentioned above, might serve the purpose of the custom
observed among the ancient Egyptians. It was one less
barbarous than- singular. A skeleton of beautiful work-
manship, in ivory, and enclosed in a small coffin, was
carried round at a feast, by a slave, who, holding it up to
each guest, remarked, " After death you will resemble
this figure; drink, then, and be happy!" It must have
encouraged the mirth " consumedly." But there was a
grave wisdom in the custom, notwithstanding.

IMrERIAL DRINKERS AND IKCIDENTS IN
GERMANY.

The stories of the gigantic drinkers ot antiqtiity are
startling ; but I think they may be accounted for.
Natural philosophers inform us, that objects seen through
a mist are magnified to the senses ; and so it is with the
feats which we are asked to contemplate throtigh the
mist of ages : they are probably not so astounding as
they appear. One may say of each story, so venerable
and enlarged by age, as the good Dominican did to the
congregation whom he had affected to tears by the
warmth of one of his legendary sermons. " Do not cry
so, my brethren," said the Preacher; "for, after all,
perhaps it 's not true."

It must be allowed, however, that the stories of wine-
bibbers of later times than those when the son of Aristides
gained his Hving- by singing ballads in the streets of
Athens, or the heir of Cicero drank draughts longer than
his sire's orations, lack nothing whatever of the marvel-
lous. And this reminds me of an incident, quod alibi
narravi, and which I will narrate here, by way of illustra-
tion of this portion of my subject.

AJSr INCIDENT OF TEAVEL.

It is now some twelve years ago that I was, in com-
pany with two Norwegians, in Prague, loitering beneath
the tower of that sacred edifice dedicated to the fearful
dancer, St. Vitus. The tower was the same which the
drunken Emperor Wenceslaus had caused to be shortened,

314 TABLE TBAITS.

hj some thirty or forty feet, because lie took it into his
head that it would one day faU, and crush him as he lay
on his uneasy couch in the Hradschin. I remarked to my '
companions, that the empire, in its palmy days, had often
been well-nigh lost through the mad caprices of tipphng
Kaisers.

" There was not a Kaiser of them all," said Lowen-
skiold, "who permanently injured either himself or his
country by his devotion to drinking."

"What!" said I; " not even MaximiHan ? "
"Not even Maximilian," remarked Kuudtzen. "The
people, indeed, were occasionally a trifle startled at seeing
their ruler proceed, either to the camp or council, with as
much white wine in him , as might serve the universe for
sauces. They slightly objected, on hearing ; that he
walked rosy and reeling to confession ; and they were not
edified at understanding that his private Almoner stirred
up his punch with a silver crucifix. They even remon-
strated with Maximilian when he had been . once within
an ace of destroying TJlm in a -drunken frolic. . And what
was his reply ? He kept the deputation of remonstrants
the whole night in his palace, and invited the citizensto
assemble, at day-break, on whatever spots commanded a
view of the towers of the cathedral. The Emperor and
the Committee of Moderates finished two hundred and ten
bottles of Rhine wine while they waited for sunrise. This,
among a temperate party of one score and one, was a
tolerable allowance for each individual. At dawn, all
Ulm was up, and every eye directed to the cathedral.
The towers had scarcely flung back the first rays from
heaven, when a joyous procession issued from the imperial
residence. The whole party, the Emperor excepted, were
as drunk as .^schylus. With difiBculty did they follow their
Lord, who, at the very top of his speed, and carrying a
heavy waggon- wheel on his shoulder, ran to the cathedral,
ascended the stairs leading to the summit of one of the

IMPEEIAL BEISTKEES AJSTD INCIDES-TS IN GEEMANX. 315

towers, and appeared on the rampart, before his stragglino-
followers had reached the low-arched door beneath.
With a light bound, he sprang on one of the highest
parts of the castellated portion, where there was scarcely
footing for him. In that position, however, he poised
the wheel aloft with his right hand, let it gently descend
on to the foot which he extended above the heads of the
multitude, and, holding it there for a moment or two,
ended by hurling it into the air, and catching it again,
ere it fell on the astounded and admiring crowd below.

" ' There, you calves ! ' cried the Emperor, as he gazed
tranquilly down on the sea of heads below; "do you
dare complain that Niedersteiuer touches your master's
nerves ? '

"'Never again!' exclaimed the dehghted mass.
'What can we do to testify our affection for Your
Majesty?'

" ' Toss those gentlemen into a tub of Selzer-water,'
said Maximilian, 'and send me half-a-dozen of Hoch-
heimer, and half-a-dozen blood-puddings, for breakfast.' "

I could almost believe this tradition ; for I had seen a
nearly similar feat once performed by a woman on a pro-
jecting mass of rock ia the Ahr Thai. The rock is,
doubtless, well known to all who have ascended that
lovely Ehine-valley, at eve, to eat Forellen, and drink
Wallportzheimer. They who do so, generally retm-n the
next morning with an inclination for nothing but the
cooling mineral waters to be had at Hippingen.

"Besides," said Knudtzen, " a-propos to cathedrals,
sober principles have done them more injury than joUy
Emperors. Do you forget that Carohne Bonaparte razed
a cathedral in Italy to the ground ?"

" I remember hearing of the deed as connected with a
church," said I; "but I have forgotten the reason alleged
for it."

" It was a very sufSoient reason for a Bonaparte. Her

316

TABLE TEAIIS.

Higliness lived next door to the cLurch ; and she had it
destroyed, because the noise of the organ kept her awake,
and the smell of the incense made her head ache."

"Eoyal minds," I remarked, "cannot condescend to
the weaknesses of common people. According to our
' Philosophical Transactions,' the pigeons at Pisa were as
destructive as Carohne Bonaparte. Pigeons, for many
ages, built under the roof of the great church there.
Their dung spontaneously took fire at last ; and the
church was consumed. But, to retm-n to the old, defunct
King of Saxony. He was afflicted with a super-dehcate
attack of virtue ; and, during the prevalence of the dis-
order, he issued a decree for the expulsion, from his
picture-gallery, of aU those master-pieces, the merit of
which lay in the glory of their flesh-colouring. He had
grown as modest as the Monk who declared that he had
never seen any portion of his body save his face and
hands. He is worthy of going down to posterity arm in
arm with that old Polish King, who was a cleaner,
but not a less deUcate, man than the Monk, and who
boasted to his Confessor that his purity of mind was so
excessive, that he had never touched his own skin with
an ungloved hand. In short; the old King of Saxony
admirably illustrated the saying of Dean Swift, that ' a
nice man was a man of nasty ideas.' He had not been a
sparer of the wine-flask. Indeed, he had rather sinned
that way ; and, in expiation thereof, he undertook to per-
form a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre on foot. A
fever of expectation shook Dresden, all the china in it,
and the whole line of road, at the idea of again beholding
a Christian King turning to the neglected shrine. The
expectation was not altogether fulfilled ; but the Monarch,
nevertheless, performed the pilgrimage."

"We never heard of it," exclaimed the travellers, look-
ing at each other with some manifestation of surprise.

" That is to say," I resumed, " that his Majesty per-

IMPEEIAL BEINKEES AlfD ITTCIDEIfTS IN GEEIVLUST. 317

formed it after a fashion. He inquired tlie distance from
his own country-house at Filnitz, to the Armenian Con-
vent at the Holy City ; and, in spite of his education, he
was nothing less than astonished, to find that it was
something more serious than a promenade to Tophtz. I
do not know if he had a vision of boiling his peas, as au
English pilgrim did, of whom I could tell you something ;
hut he certainly experienced some unpleasant sensations
at the idea that, the way being so long, he might chance
to find himself without peas to boil. He wept at the
reflection that he might not only be a devout, but a
hungry. King, while one half of Dresden were solacing
their appetites on the terrace of Bruhl, and the other, at
the Baths of Link, or at the Bastei. He thought of the
dangers ; but he would be devout. The attendant pains
were great ; but .the resulting pleasures were not to be
denied. In short, he would not go to Jerusalem ; but he
would perform the pilgrimage. Accordingly, the exact
distance having been ascertained, he started from his
room, and walked the entire number of leagues by pacing
up and down a long gallery, deducting from the distance
the amount of water passage, which was but fair. If
admiration had been great at the commencement, sm--
prising fun was excited during the performance. Every
evening the citizens of Dresden knew how far their reli-
gious Euler had proceeded on his way, or how far he
would have proceeded, if he had but set out. Now, he
was breakfa.sting, in imagifflation, at Breslau; sleeping
(in fancy) at Olmutz ; and passing, by a pleasant fiction,
through Buda. During two days that his Majesty suf-
fered from a real bilious attack, the result, perhaps, of a
Barmecidal repast at Essek on the Drave, the King rested
at Belgrade, while confined to his bed in Dresden. But
his zeal soon re-invigorated his liver ; and, as he glided to
and fro by his palace windows, the mystified multitude
below learned that the Monarch was lodging in the

318 TABLE TEAITS.

touse of the Saxon Legation at Istamboul. The pilgrim-
traveller suffered a little from the heat (of the room)
as he descended from the western coast of Asia Minor ;
but the inconvenlencies of the route were things beneath
the thoughts of him who — whether at Bursa, Smyrna,
or any other locality on his way — could ring his hell in
the Desert, and order Champagne out of his own cellar.
The King was puzzled one mid-day, (he had by calcula-
tion just reached Beyrout,) his progress being checked by
the unexpected arrival of a portion of the imperial family
from Vienna. Visitors of such condition must be attended
to ; nevertheless, his pilgrimage must be continued ; and
he, Kke the clever and facetious palmer that he was, did
both. He attended his guests with much politeness,
during their stay of two days ; and he put down the time
thus spent, as consumed in a sea voyage from Beyrout to
Acre. The moment they left, the royal pilgrim went ashore
again, and happily accomplished the remaining distance
to Jerusalem, through Nassara and Nablous, without any
other hinderance or obstruction than his going one night
to see a French vaudeville, while supposed to be enjoying
his well-earned repose at Eama or Muddin. And thus
was accomplished that royal pilgrimage that was never
performed. The King reached Jerusalem without going
there ; and the people saw him return who had never
departed."

" Well," said Harold Knudtzen, "the Kings of Saxony
are no longer such simpletons. The present Monarch
loves, indeed, good wine, ' craftily qualified ;' but he
also, like Uzziah, King of Judah, loves husbandry.
Josephine herself had not half so frantic a passion for
flowers as he ; and not for flowers alone in their beauty,
— not for botany, either, merely for amusement's sake,
but for phytology and pharmacy, as connected with it."

"ile lisped Linnaeus," said Lowenskiold, "before he
could speak plainly."

IMPEElAl DEOKEES AlTD INCLDEITTS IN GEEMANT. 319

"And, by reputation, he knew Toumefort better tban
he did Knecht Eupert," added Harold.

"He himself told us, when we met him in Dalmatia,"
continued the latter, "that he could spell Bodecandria
and Trigynia before he could read Grimm's Story-Book ;
and that he knew the meanings of monopetalous and cam-
•paniform before he was acquainted with the languages
from which the terms were derived. T never saw a man
so eager in pursuit of apetaloios amentaceous flowers ; and
as for carryopJiylous"

"Leave off your abominable phrases!" said I, "and
begin by telling me how you two very modest fellows
introduced yourselves to the acquaintance of the Sove-
reign of Saxony."

" The Latroduction was effected through a very Kght-
hearted and intelligent fellow-botanizer, whom we met on
our way from Zara up to the mountains. We had all
three lost our way while endeavouring to find an infundi-
iuliform "

"Nay," intermpted I, " I care not what you found, if
you choose to tell it in pentameters."

" Well," resumed Ejiudtzen, " we were in a wild part of
the country, — weary, hungry, cold, and in the dark. Wan-
derers could not well be in a worse plight. We were as
flute' as Juno's columns near the church of St. Helia; and
the skeleton doing duty there for that of St. Simeon of
Judaea, the pride and palladium of the people of Zara,
looked in far better condition, and in, especially, better
raiment, than could be boasted of by us humble pedes-
trians. We had walked many leagues, when we reached
a sorry inn kept by a Gipsy, where we hoped to find
rest and refreshment, but were permitted to enjoy
neither. Our swarthy host stood in 'his door-way, like
Horatius Codes at the head of the bridge. Beds he
did not even profess to find for travellers. He had
not slept in one himself for years, and was none the

320 TABLE TEAITS.

worse, lie said, for the privation. Leopold asked for
wine,

'"We have three sorts of wine,' said the Gipsy,
' which travellers Hke yourselves once tasted and paid
for. I have the very wines which the seven Schwaben
asked for in the Goldenes Kreutz at Ueherlingen.'

" 'What! old Sauerampfer ? ' cried Lowenskiold.

" ' The same,' said our singular host. ' It is not quite
so sour as vinegar, but it will pierce the marrow of your
-bones like a sword ; and it will so twist your mouth, that
you shall never get it straight again.'

" ' We will try something better than this acid water,'
said I : ' we wUl'

" ' Try the Dreimannerswein ? I am sorry there are
only women in the house ! '

" ' What, in the name of all your saints in Zara, have
your women to do with the refreshment we need p'

" ' Do ! nothing in the world ! that is precisely it !
You will want three . men each of you. For Dreiman-
nerswein is three times as rough and ten times as sour as
vinegar ; and he who drinks it must be held fast by two
men, while a third pours the liquid down his throat !'

" ' And what of the third of these Olympic beverages ?'
said I.

" ' It is called Sachenputzer, and has peculiar quahties
too. He who lies down to sleep with a flask of it in his
body, must be aroused every half-hour, and turned over.
Otherwise a pint of Eachenputzer would eat a hole right
through his side !'

" The Gipsy laughed aloud as he uttered these words.
We ourselves laughed in despite of our vexation ; and,
somewhat startliagly, a fourth voice took up the cachin-
natory , affection, and laughed even louder than the ori'
ginal three. As the new-comer stood in the light of the
door-way, the landlord touched his cap, withdrew hastUy
into the passage, and slammed the door in our faces.

IMPEEIAIi DEITTKEES AlTD INCIDENTS IN GEEMANT. 321

leaving us in Cimmerian darkness, summer trousers, and
a drizzling rain. The matter was no longer risible, and
we were beginning to be seriously annoyed, when the
mysterious stranger, whom we could but indistinctly see,
invited us to accompany him we knew not whither, and
hospitably to partake of we knew not what. We
accepted, the invitation most gratefully ; and after a full
half-hour's walk, we found ourselves on the skirts of a
wood. In less than half that time, we subsequently reached
a neat little house within the wood itself ; and I do not think
ten minutes had elapsed, ere we had made such toilette as
travellers may, and, with some doubts as to the reaUty of
the circumstance, detected ourselves in the act of eating
vermicelli soup, and wondering how it had reached us.

" Before o.ur repast was entirely dispatched, our host,
in whom we saw a young, well-made, and exceedingly
amiable personage, informed us that he was on a botaniz-
ing expedition for the benefit of an estabhshment in
Northern Germany ; that he had been two months set-
tled in the house in which we then were, and that he
had already given temporary shelter to three plant-
explorers, who had resorted, in their need, to the house
of Djewitzki, the Gipsy, and who had found to their
sorrow, that it had nothing of the quality of an inn
about it, except the sign.

■ " We talked of flowers that night," continued Knudt-
zen, " as though they were the foremost as well as the
fairest things in aU the world. But we were sciolists in
the science, and, contrasted with us, our host was a sage.
He knew that agrimony was under Jupiter, and ange-
lica under the Sun in Leo ; that milfoil was under the
influence of Venus, and that garden basU was a herb of
Mars. If evei-y new idea be worth the knowing, why,
we gained knowledge by the information, that aU the
dodders are under Saturn. We heard, for the first time,
the virtues of the plant enchusa."

X

322 TABLE TEAITS.

"But," interrupted Lowenskiold, "we were enabled to
remind our host of what Dioscorides says about it, — that
if any who have newly eaten of it do but spit in the
mouth of a serpent, the reptile instantly dies."

" True," said Enudtzen, " we have not been at Upsal
for nothing."

" We may all aid each other by turns," I remarked to
my two friends, as we arrived, after descending from the
cathedral, on the old bridge over the Moldau. A large
herd of cattle was crossing it at the time ; and some of
the foremost black oxen of this herd had bunches
of amara dulds (or, "woody nightshade") hung round
their necks ; a common custom in Germany, as I told
the young travellers, and employed as a remedy against
dizziness in the head.

"Of the owner or the ox?" said Harold, with a
laugh.

" Of him who wears it," I rejoined, " But I want to
see the entry of your King of Saxony," I continued, " and
not to listen to the description, uses, and property of
herbs, plants, and flowers ; maiden-hair, moon-wort, and
orniikogalum s^ieatmn."

"So much the worse ! ' ' answered Knudtzen, " or Leopold
and I had told you what we learned from our entertainer
of celandine ; and what he told us, from Pliny, of the
anemone : how he recommended us, should we ever visit
Naples, never to retire to rest without strewing about
our bed-chamber some chopped leaves of arse-smart, a
herb most murderous to the numerous light troops can-
toned in Neapolitan sleeping-rooms ; how balm was good
for the bite of scorpions; how Pliny recommends end-
weed for the quinsy; — and a thousand other matters
touching leaves, herbs, trees, flowers, roots, and barks.
But I mil tell you that our Amphitryon was light as
well as learned, and loved ftm as he did flowers. He
would discourse upon ballets as well as battles ; knew all

IMPEEIAI, DEHfEEES AND IITCIBENTS IN GEEMANT. 323

about logarithms and the new opera ; told anecdotes ;
remembered sermons ; and, finally, lighted ns to bed,
with a Latin quotation, and a brass candlestick. By
daybreak we were all out in the vicinity of the house,
looking for rare plants, with as much avidity as though
they equalled diamonds in value. We returned together
to a breakfast exactly adapted to our tastes and capaci-
ties ; after which, our knapsacks were once more on our
shoulders, and, having made due acknowledgment for the
hospitality received, we begged to be permitted to know
the name of our entertainer.

"'Tou might call me,' said he, 'the Dalmatian
botanist, if I particularly cared about maintaining my
incognito. But I hope we shall meet again ; and, if you
ever visit Dresden, come to me, and you shall have better
fare than I have been able to afford you here. Ask for
the King of Saxony,' he added, observing our inquiring
looks ; ' and in the mean time write your names on these
tablets, and you shall find that in Dresden I have not
forgotten the night in Dalmatia.' "

" And did you and the good Frederick Augustus ever
meet again?"

"Twice," said Harold. "We saw one another for a
moment, a month afterwards, in Zai-a. He was accom-
panying the Emperor of Austria, followed by a brilliant
staflF, to a review, and he gave us a smile of recognition
as he passed."

" The second time we met him," added Leopold, " was
in the gardens of the Nympheuberg, near Mimich. He
was alone, amusing himself with feeding the beavers.
We spent a very agreeable hour with him in exploring
that pleasant retreat of the Kings of Bavaria ; and, on
parting, he repeated his wish that we might meet again
in Dresden, — a circumstance not very unlikely, as we are
now on our way to the Sachsische Schweitz."

Y 2

A FEW ODD GLASSES OF WINE.

The ancient people wto loved the juice of the grape,
kept in grateftil remembrance the names of the first
planters of vines.- Bacchus came from India, through
Egypt, into Europe; and he and his joyous company
made vineyards bloom amid many a desert. But the
introduction of the vine was not unopposed. The Chi-
ans accepted gratefully the rosy gift from CEnopia ; and
the brajlch was hailed on its passage through Greece,
Sicily, and Italy. But in Greece the vines were destroyed
wherever the order of Lycurgus had force ; and it was in
Athens that, under King Cranaus, men first diluted the
potent draught with water. The gods visited Greece
with an inundation in consequence ; but the Sicilians,
nothing daunted, adopted the temperance that was not
sanctioned in Olympus. Domitian did for the vines
carried into Gaul, from Tuscany, what Lycurgus did for
those of Lacedsemonia ; but Probus restored them to the
thirsty Gauls. Numa had taught his people to train the
vine which Janus had given them ; and, by placing the
statue of Minerva by the side of that of Bacchus, he
taught them a lesson which Domitian could not compre-
hend. He did not know how to be merry and wise.

It was long before the Egyptians acknowledged, by
grateful use, the excellence of the vine. The Scythians,
some of the Persians, and the Cappadocians would not
drink the delusive draught ~ upon any account ; but then
these were barbarians. The Cappadocians especially not
only refused wine, but Uberty, When the latter was

A TE^W ODD GLASSES OF WIITE. 325

offered them by the Romans, the reply of the ■water-
drinkers was, " that they would neither accept liherty
nor tolerate it !" It is to be remarked, however, that all
these people tardily attained to a better taste, like the
great Hippocrates himself, who, after touching on the
advisability of mixing wine with water, finally decides,
like the enthusiastic Athenians, that it is much better to
take the beverage neat. He thinks that, when grief is at
the heart, pure wine is a specific ; and no doubt Ariadne
thought so too, or she would not have turned to Bacchus
after Theseus had abandoned her to a short-Uved incon-
solabUity. Eome long honoured Bacchus even as Ariadne
did ; and he who stole a bunch of grapes from a vineyard
ineiirred the penalty of death. Italy was, indeed, proud
of her vines and their produce. Of the two hundred
varieties of wine then known in the world, only fom'seore
were declared to be "excellent;" and of these fourscore,
nearly thirty were said to be natives of Italy. The
Chian wines, however, maintained for ages a marked pre-
eminence. It was a vase fiUed with wine of Chios that
the poet Ion gave to eveiy Athenian who was present at
the representation of a tragedy, for which the poet was
publicly crowned. '.' Pav^er es, ut solent poette" was
therefore, evidently, a line that could not be universally
applied to the poets of Greece.

They loved old wine, too, did those old people. Wine,
as old as the years to which ravens are reported to attain,
— a century, or even two, — ^was served up at Eome. It
was in consistency something like the clotted cream of
Devonshire. But there was wine of a more solid con-
sistency than this. I have elsewhere spoken of wine
chopped in pieces by an axe, before it could be used.
This was because of an accident which had happened to
the wine; but the Eomans had vinous preparations
which were served up in lumps ; and we hear of wines
being kept in the chimney like modern bacon, and pre-

326 TABLE TEAITS.

sented to the guests " as hard as salt." The ancients are
also reported to have been able to change red wine into
white, by means of white of egg and bean-flour, shaken
together with the red wine in a flagon. It would require
much shaking before a degenerate modem could effect
the mutation in question. But if Cato could imitate the
best Chian by means of his own gooseberries, the other
feat may hardly be disputed. It is certain that the
ancients could boldly swallow some questionable mixtures.
Thus they drank their wine with sea-water, in order to
stimulate and whip up energies exhausted by being over-
driven the night before. Myrtle wine, on the other hand,
was copiously drunk at dawn by those who could not
sleep, but who could afford to remain in bed, and try to
court Nature's soft nurse.

There were Roman ladies who were not born before
nerves were in fashion. These had their especial drinks,
sovereign in their effects, to calm a nervous system too
sorely excited. The most efScacious of these was the
" Adynamon" or "powerless wine;" that is, powerless
to intoxicate, but excellent as an invigorator. It con-
sisted simply of a mixture of water and white-wort ; and
when Julia or Lalage had tremblingly sipped thereof, her
nerves were so braced, that she could stand by and look
on while Geta was flogged for an hour.

On the point of secret drinking, the early Eomans
were quite as particular and more merciless regarding
their wives. When Micennius detected his wife in the act
of " sucking the monkey," that is, feloniously imbibing
his wine through a straw at the bung-hole, he then and
there slew her. Complaint was made by her friends to
Eomulus ; but that chief and sole magistrate confined
himself to the remark, that she had been justly served. The
wine-casks at home were for years afterwards accounted
sacred by the wives in the absence of their lords. It
would appear, too, by this incident, that wine was com-

A EEW ODD GliSSES OF WINE. 327

monly produced long before Numa introduced the improve-
ment of training the vine. There were ladies who were
rendered more cautious, hut not less bold, by the judgment
prouoimced by Eomulus. We hear of one caught ia the
fact by some members of her own family, who were so
disgusted with her immorahty, that to preserve the
respectability of their house, they starved her to death.
As years wore on, Judges grew more good-natured, and
only deprived tippling married women of all right ia
their marriage portions. The Empire could hardly have
been inaugurated, before thirsty ladies adopted a custom
that had been denied them under the Commonwealth.
Livia, the consort of Augustus, was eighty-two when
she died ; and it was her boast that wine alone had made
her an octogenarian. What wine she drank is not stated.
She may have had a head that could bear old Falernian
undiluted ; but that was not the case with many of her
sex. The Roman ladies' wine was, generally speaking,
little more than a sweet tisane, distilled from asparagus
or marjoram ; from parsley, mint, rue, wild thyme, or
pennyroyal. These were sipped at breakfast-time ; and
the hour and the ingredient would seem rather to point
to ^sculapius than to Bacchus. They were, in fact,
medicinal drinks. The strong wines were drunk at other
hours, and these more innocent draughts were swallowed
in the morning, with reflections as bitter as the beverage.
Wormwood wine, too, was a favourite morning stimulant
with intoxication ; and it cannot be denied, that if modern
guests were condemned to a "pint of salt and water"
with their wine, the hilarity after dinner would not be of
a very joyous aspect. Some of the "sea-wines" of the
Greeks, however, owed their name and reputation chiefly
to being immersed, in casks, in the ocean. Our Madeira
may thus be called a " sea-wine," when it has been to
the East Indies and back for the benefit of its health.
" Chambertin" was the favourite wine of Napoleon.

328 TABLE TEAITS.

The "vmum dulce" obtained after drying the grapes in
the sun, during three days, and crushing them beneath
the feet, ia the hottest hours of the fourth day, was the
drink for which Commodus had a predilection. It was
after draughts of this beverage that he used to fight in
the Circus as the "Eoman Hercules," as proud of his
performance as Mr. Ducrow, when he used to ride round
it in the same character. Commodus, too, Uke the great
equestrian, was an artist in his way ; but he ruined the
managers by the exorbitant salaries which he wrung
from them, whenever he condescended to appear in the

arena

For the games of the Circus, and for bread after the
sport was over, the Eomans have been reproachfully
pointed at as alone earing. Considering the plight into
which they had been plunged by their Rulers and Priests,
they seem to me to have been wise in their sentiment.
One circumstance is clear, — ^that they might dip their
pennyworth of bread into a deep cup of " sack" at the
same price. Wine cost but sixpence a gallon, — a suffi-
cient quantity for half-a-dozen gentlemen just returned
from the Circus ; or for half-a-dozen ladies, who had
learned to break through the total-abstinence principle of
the women of the Eepublic. There was much wine to be
had for a trifling outlay of money. In Greece, it was
cheaper stiU. In Athens, wine was dear at fourpence per
gallon; and ordinarily, Davus, out on a hoUday, might
get drunk upon four quarts of it, at a halfpenny per
quart; but Chremes would nearly flay him alive, if he
caught him before he was sober.

• I may add, that this was the price of wine, that is, of
French wine, in England, under John. A tun of EocheUe
wine cost twenty shillings, and it was retailed at four*
pence per gallon. But taking the value of money into
consideration, this was rather a high price.

When Probus restored the vine to the Gauls, he sent

A FEW ODD GLASSES OF WIKE. 329

cuttings of the precious plant Into Britain ; and many
localities In the south part of the island produced a very
respectahle heverage, of which the parent stock had no
reason to be ashamed. " As sure as God is in Glouces-
tershire!" was a common phrase when that picturesque
county was covered with monasteries ; and many of the
monastic gardens were famous for their grapes and the
liquor distilled from them. The little village of Dur-
weston, near Blandford, in Dorsetshire, was once as
remarkable for its peculiar grape and its product, as that
restricted Ehenish locality, whose grapes produce the
Lieb Frauenmilch. Of the respective merits of the Enghsh
grapes, I will say nothing. The merits of French wines
have, however, occupied the attention of rival medical
colleges, whose professors have shed much ink, and cracked
whole legions of bottles, in order to discuss, rather than
settle, the divers deserts of Burgundy and Champagne.
The question is yet an undecided one, as is also that
respecting the devotion of the Gauls to the grapes.
Arnaud de VUleneuve praises the mediaeval people of
France, who intoxicated themselves monthly upon hygienic
principles. While other writers assert, that " in the mid-
dle ages, and in the sLsteenth centm-y, intoxication was
severely punished in France." I am the more inclined
to believe in the latter assertion, as the laws against
drinking and drinkers, from Charlemagne to Francis I.,
have often been cited ; and they are marked by a severity
— ^which Eabelais did not care for, a button !

Our own wine-trade with France began after the Nor-
man Conquest, and was very considerable when our
English Bangs were proprietors of the French wine dis-
tricts. About the middle of the sixteenth century, the
masdmum price of wine was fixed at twelve-pence per
gallon ; but at this time no one was allowed to have in
his house a measure that would contain above ten gallons,

330 TABLE TEAITS.

unless, indeed, he were of noble birth, or could expend a
hundi-ed marks annually.

Of all French wines, that of Burgundy is the most
difficult of carriage. Some Burgundies cannot bear it at
all; others are transported in bottles covered with a
cottony paper, or bedded in salt. Pure Burgundy exhila-
rates without intoxicating ; and there is not a liver com-
plaint in a hogshead of it. It is the alcohoUe wines that
massacre the jecw.

The Burgundy vineyards were originally in connexion
with the Burgundian monasteries, and there were no
better vignerons than the monks. The modem quality of
the wine is inferior to its ancient reputation, simply
because modern proprietors are not artistical monks, but
mere money-makers. Napoleon adhered to the whie as
long as he could ; but at St. Helena he took to Bordeaux,
— Chambertin would have lost its best qualities in the
voyage thither.

The Emperor was, perhaps, the best judge of his
favourite Chambertin that Trance ever could boast of,
except, probably, in the case of the good Lindsay, of Bal-
carras. Bishop of Kildare. This Prelate long resided at
Tours, and was an excellent connoisseur in wine, though
he modestly used to say, "Ifl know any thing, it is the
management of turnip crops and mangel-wurzel." It is
no disparagement of the episcopal bench to say, that
many of its members could not justifiably make a similar
boast. Lord Brougham, I believe, used to say, that " if
he knew any thing, it was, that claret should always be
drunk after game." There is an imperial authority in^
favour of Champagne. When the Emperor Wenceslaus
visited France in the fourteenth century, to negotiate
with Charles VI., it was impossible ever to get him sober
to a conference. "It was no matter," he said; "they
might decide as they hked, and he would drink as he

A PEW ODD GLASSES OF AVINE. 331

liked; and thus both parties would be on an equality."
There is something curious in the caprices of Champagne ;
particularly of the vin mousseux, or efiervescing wine.
In the same cellar, the same wine, all similarly placed,
will mousser in some bottles, and not in others. It will
even, when poured from the same bottle, mousser in some
glasses into which it is poured, while in others it wiU
fall as heavily placid as oU. In warm weather, however, a
great Champagne cellar is a very lively place ; so lively,
that it is unsafe to walk through the serried hosts of
bottles, without a wire mask over the face.

There are one or two sorts of French wine which are
considered to be improved by letting a small portion of
the stalk be trodden in with the grape. But, probably, in
the selection of the grape, there is no where such care
taken, as in the matter of imperial Tokay. The grapes
are selected with the greatest care ; sometimes a second
selection is made from the first selected lot. No grape
is chosen that is not perfectly sound. The result-
ing wine is of a highly delicious flavour; but I need
not add, that the general public know but very little
about it. To them is vouchsafed the brewage from the
damaged grape, or the distillation of the refuse of the
first grape. The product is an acid one, resembling
moderately good Rhine wine ; but it is not Tokay.

"Old Wortley Montague" was a great drinker of
Tokay. He lived to the patriarchal age of eighty -three.
Gray, writing of him, says, that it was not mere avarice,
and its companion, abstinence, that kept him alive so
long. He imported his own wine from Himgary, in
greater quantity than he coidd use, and he sold the overplus,
— drinking himself a half-pint every day, — for any price he
chose to set upon it. It was a fashionable wine with the
drinkers of the last century. Walpole records its being
offered at a supper given by Miss Chudleigh to the Duke
of Kingston, her then "protector." "At supper she

332 TABLE TEAITS.

offered him Tokay, and told him she believed he would
find it good." The entertainment was splendid, and
mitidy, " The supper was in two rooms, and very fine ;
and on all the sideboards, and even on the chairs, were
pyramids and troughs of strawberries and cherries ; you
would have ihought she was kept by Vertumnus ! "

Our ancient acquaintance, ''mustard," was originally
raised to the character of " wine," in common with some
other of the seeds used at ancient tables. Our warm
friend mustard was the mustttm ardens, or " hot wine."
It was held as good for persons of bilious temperament,
and as being more beneficial in summer than in winter.
Coriander was used in the same season. It was mixed
with vinegar, and poured over meat to preserve its fresh-
ness. There are some men who faint at the smeU of
linseed. A bread made therefrom was once, however,
readily eaten by various European and Asiatic people.
Cakes made of it were placed before the altars of gods, —
men making willing sacrifice of what they accounted as
of small value. Similar sacrifices are made daily even
now ; only they are not in the form of aniseed cakes.

It is said of the Arabs, that they manufactured an
intoxicating wine from linseed. This beverage was worthy
of being served witlj that strange dish at dessert, — ^fried
hempseed, — a dish that would have been appropriate
enough at a highwayman's last supper, the night before
he rode to Tyburn.

It used to be said of old, that wine was a sympathetic
liquor ; and this is alluded to by more than one writer.
Sir Kenelm Digby, in his " Dissertation on the Cure of
Wounds," makes a singular remark with respect to wine.
" The wine-merchants observe every where, (where there
is wine,) that during the season the vines are in the flower,
the wines in the cellar make a kind of fermentatioii, and
percolate forth a little white lee (which I think they call
' the mother of the wine ') upon the surface of the wine,

A FEW ODD GLASSES OF -WllTE. 333

■which continues in a kind of disorder till the flower of
the vines be fallen ; and then, this agitation being ceased,
all the wine returns to the same state as it was in before."
It was a custom with the ancients to swallow, to the
health of their mistresses, as many cups or glasses as
there were letters in her name. To this custom Martial
refers : —

" Neevia sex cyathis, sepiem Justina iiiatur,
Quinque Iajcos, Lyde gnatuor, Ida triius :
Orrmis ah infuso numeretur arnica Falerno."
It became us, as a more mechanical people, to drink upon
pegs rather than letters : the peg-tankards were said to
be the invention of King Edgar. The two-gallon mea-
sure had eight pegs ; and the half piut, from peg to peg,
was deemed a fitting draught for an honest man ; but as
the statute, or custom, did not define how often the
toper might be permitted to indulge iu this measure,
people of thirsty propensities got rather more inebriated
than they had dared to be previously. As the half-pint
was roughly set down as the maximum of their draught,
it was a point of honour with them never to drink less, —
and to drink to that extent as often as opportunity
ofiered. The Council of London (Archbishop Anselm's
" Canons," a.d. 1102) expressly warned the Clergy against
the perils of peg-drinking ; but the same CouncU looked
upon perukes as being quite as perilous as these pegged
half-pints, and denounced wigs with as much intensity as
tankards, — and to about as much purpose. Karloman
understood the Ecclesiastics better ; at least, if traditionary
history be worthy of any respect.

Among the legends of the Rhine connected with my
present subject of wine, there is one which is worth men-
tioning. The great Karloman, who loved good liquor,
bequeathed to the brotherhood of Monks at Eheinfeld a
marvellous and covetable butt of wine, which had not
only the merit of being of first-rate quality, but which

334 TABLE TEAITS.

never decreased, though it was coiitmually ruiming at
the spigot ! This wine was for the use of the brethren ;
but the good Emperor also left a sum of money which
he' desired should he spent in treating visitors to the
monastery with good Ehenish wine. When a weary
traveller claimed the hospitality of the Monks, he was
immediately conducted to an inner apartment. Here he
was invested with the collar of Karloman, and gravely
informed that, it being necessary that he should be bap-
tized, he had only to say whether he preferred that the
ceremony should be performed with wine or with water.
If, Uke an honest fellow, he selected wine, he was gently
constrained to swallow three monster bumpers of Mus-
catel. He was then crowned with a parcel-gilt coronet,
and so became installed one of the joUy Knaves of St.
Groar. There were some privileges attached to this dig-
nity ; among others, was the right to fish on the summit
of the.Lurley Berg, where there is no water; and of
hunting on the sand-banks of the Ehine, where there is
not safe footing for a sparrow. The poor temperate
wight, on the other hand, who preferred the modest
medium of water for the ceremony of his baptism, was
proclaimed a blind Heathen, and was immediately drenched
to the skin, from outpouring buckets of water that- were
showered upon him in all directions. Such was the
solemnity of the Hansel, as instituted by Karloman.
This Emperor's affection for the Ehine and its vicinity
was as strong as that of an old gastronomic Enghsh
Bishop for his native island. The episcopal attachment
is exemplified ia the story of the Prelate's last moments,
when his faithful servant John endeavoxured to encourage
him. "Be comforted, my Lord," said John: "your
Lordship is going to a better place." "Ah, John!" said
the Bishop, "there is no place like old England ! "

There was a practice among the Eomans with regard
to wine, which should win the respect of all our Inns of

A FEW ODD GLASSES OP WIIIE. 335

Court. All law business was suspended during vintage
time. " Sane," says Miaucius Felix, " ei ad mndemiam
f erics judiciorum cur am relaxaverunt ;" and ttis was no
poor holiday : it was the Long Vacation of the Eoman bar,
extending, as the Eev. Hubert Ashton Holden remarks,
in his admirable edition of the " Octavius" from August
22nd to October 15th. And here let me remark, paren-
thetically, how much preferable it would be to make a
school-book of the " Octavius " of Minucius Felix, so rich
in early Christian information, and so pure in its Latinity,
rather than pursue the old course of letting boys read
Ovid and similar authors. The Abbe Gaume, in his
" Ver Bongev/r," traces all the evils by which society is
afflicted, to the study of erotic Latin and Greek authors.
The Abbe rushes from, one extreme into its opposite, and
wishes to confine our sons to the mawkish Latinity of the
Lives of the Saints, and the Pastorals (so unlike the
Eclogues) of Bishops. The work of Minucius Felix just
occupies the safe medium of the two remote points, —
erotic Heathenism, and Monkish mendacity, told with
much violation of grammar. It is a book that ought to
be on the list of works to be studied in every locality
devoted to the education of " ingenuous youth."

It is hardly necessary to write of the effects of wine on
the bodily economy. They are too famiUarly known.
There was an old adage that —

" He who goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,
I'aUs as the leaves do, and dies in October ;
But be who goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow.
Lives as be ought to do, and dies a good fellow."

This is poor poetry, worse sentiment,- and deadly coun-
sel. Half the evils that torture men arise from intem-
perance ; and, next to excess in alcohol, immoderation in
wine is the most fatal practice to which humanity can
biad itself slave. An Arab says of his horse, that the
horse's belly is the measure of its corn. Men are too

336 TABLE TEAITS.

apt to allow a similar metage with respect to themselves
in the matter of wine. It were safer to remember that
vre cannot drink too little, and that we soon may be
drinking too much. Panard very justly says, —
" Se piguer d'etre grand huveur.
Est nu ahus quije deplore,
Fwjons ce titre peu flatteur ;

Cent un honneur qui deshonore.
Quand on hoit trap, on s'assoupit,

M Von, toinle en, delire :
Buvons ponr avoir de I' esprit, *

Bt non pour le detruire.''
Ab good advice, more eloquently delivered, is given by
our own Herbert, a poet next to Shakespeare for fehcity
of expression. Our reverend minstrel and monitor says, —
"Drink not the tiird glass, wHcli tlou canst not tame
■When once it is within thee, but before
May'st mle it as thou list ; and pour the shame.
Which it would pour on thee, upon the floor.
It is most just to,throw that on the ground,
Which would throw me there, if I keep the round."
And again : —

" If reason move not, gallants, quit the room ;
(All in a shipwreck shift their several way ;)
let not a common ruin thee entomb ;
Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay,'
Stay at the third cup, or forego the place :
"Wine, above all things, does God's stamp dpface."
• This is admirable counsel, logic, and theology. The
people who least stood in need of such a triad of excel-
lent aids to good living were the Egyptians, at that par-
ticular period of their career when they confined them-
selves to drinking

" Beer small as comfort, dead as charity."

And this may naturally lead us to look in, for ai

moment, on both the ancient and the modern Egyptians,

■when seated at table. But, previous to doing so, there

is a little philological matter I would fain settle, as far as

A TEW ODD G1.ASSES OF WINE. 337

SO indifferent an authority may presume to do so, and
wtich may interest, not merely wine-bibbers, but ety-
mologists, and zealous correspondents to " Notes and
Queries." It may be very briefly discussed.

I bave noticed, in another page, the fact that nearly
all our old-fashioned drinking phrases are but corruptions
of foreign terms. A " carouse," for instance, is derived
from "gar aus" " altogether empty," sufficiently indicative
of what a reveUer was to do with his fuU glass. There is
one-=-a rather vulgar term — of the origin of which, how-
ever, I have never heard any account. But I think I
may have discovered it in a little German poem, by
Pfarrius, called " Der Trunk aus dem Stiefel," and which,
thus roughly done into English, may serve to show

THE ORIGIN OF " BOOSEY."

In the Khelngraf's hall were of Knights a score,
And they drained their goblets o'er and o'er,
And the torches they flving a Inrid glow
On the Knights who were drinking there hdow.

" Ho, ho 1 " said the Rheingraf, " Sir Knights, 1 find.
Our courier has left a boot behind ;
He who can empty it off at a breath, —
The Hufflesheim vUlage is his till death."

Then laughing, he filled the boot to the rim,
TiU the bright red wine flowed over the brim ;
And said, as he mark'd their sparkling eyes, —
• " Good luck to you. Knights — ^you know the prize !"

Then Johann von Sponheim sat silent by.
But pushed his neighbour to rise and try ;
And Meinhart, his neighbour, could nothing do
But scowl at the boot, and sit silent too.

Old Horsheim, he nervously stroked his beard ;
And Kunz von Stromberg spoke never a word ;
And even the giant Chaplain stared
At the monster boot, as though he were scared.

338 TABLE TBAITS.

Then Boos von Waldeck did loudly call, —

" Here, hand me that thimhle !" and " Health to all !"

And then, in one hreath, to the very last drain.

He dranlc, and fell hack on his seat again,

And said, " 0, Sir Rheingraf, it were my mind,
Had the fellow his other boot left behind.
To empty that, too, at a breath ; and take
For my prize Norheim village, near the lake."

Then loud laughed they all at Waldeck's good jest, —
Of all landless tipplers, tiU then, the best ;
But the Kheingraf, he kept his knightly word, —
And Boos of the Boot was Hufflesheim's lord 1

If therein be not the origin of hoosey," why, let the
lexicographers look to it. But my readers will have had
enough of these uncouth names. I have now to intro-
duce them to hosts with names equally unmusical ; but,
luckily, we have now to do more with acts than appella-
tions, and therewith pass we to golden Egypt, and her
well-spread boards. I will only first add another word
respecting spirits, as a beverage. AU authorities are
agreed, that reason has no more deadly foe than alcohol.
The effects of the latter are well described by Dr.
Winslow, whom we have previously quoted in the matter
of mental dietetics, — a gentleman who might, with justice,
have given a plump denial to the remark of Macbeth, had
it been addressed to Dr. Winslow, when the royal patient
uncivilly told his medical adviser, "Thou canst not
minister to a mind diseased." Dr. Winslow says :
" The alcoholic elements introduced into the blood, and
brought into immediate contact with the tissues of differ-
ent organs, will derange the functions which they are
severally destined to perform ; and the amount and cha-
racter of the mischief so produced will correspond with,
and be modified by, the peculiarities of their individual
organic structure. With these facts before us, when we

A FEW ODD GLASSES Or -WIKE. 339

consider the delicate structure of the brain, as revealed to
ns by the progress of microscopic anatomy, we must be
prepared for the physical and mental derangement which
must arise, either from the alcohol itself, or its elements,
being brought into direct contact with the vesicular
neurine or granular matter entering into the composition
of its white and grey substance. According to our most
recent physiological views, the vesicular matter is the
source of nervous power, and associated, as the material
instrument of the mind, with aU its manifestations,
whether in the simple exercise of perception, or the more
comphcated operations of the thinking principle. We
are then to conceive the simple or organic structure
dedicated to this high function brought into contact with
irritating and noxious elements. The result must obvi-
ously be a disturbance in the manifestations of the mind
proportioned to the organic derangements so produced;
and without, therefore, taking a materialistic view of the
changes which take place, the obhteration of some, and
the derangement of other of the intellectual facidties, are
hereby satisfactorily accounted for. It is certain, that
when the circulation in the grey matter of the convolu-
tions is retarded by congestion, or accelerated by unwonted
stimulation, there is a corresponding state of stupor or
mental activity, amounting even to delirium, produced;
and, indeed, it has been suggested, by some of our most
eminent physiologists, that every idea of the mind is
associated with a corresponding change in some part, or
parts, of the vesicular surface." And if they who sit
" amid bumpers brightening," could only hold this truth
in sober memory, there would be less imbibed at night,
and more sunshine in their souls on the morrow. And
inow let us pass to the cradle of wisdom, the ancient
Misraim, where, despite the national boast, folly was,
perhaps, as much deified as in any locality upon
earth.

z 2

S40 TABLE TEAIIS.

Tes, let us now to ancient Egypt, where, as good oH
Herbert so finely expresses it, —

"Men did sow
Gardens of gods, which every year did ^ow
IPresh and fine deities. They were at great cost
Who for a god clearly a salLet lost 1
O, what a thing is man devoid of grace,
Adoring,garlic with a humhle face 1
BeggiQg his food of that which he may eat,
Starving the while he worshippeth his meatt
Who makes a loot a god, how low is he.
If God and man be severed infinitely 1
What wretchedness can give him any room,
Whose house is foul, while he adores his broom ? "

THE TABLE OP THE ANCIENT AND
MODERN EGYPTIANS.

If neither the grave of the Pharaohs nor physiology
will, nor Dr. Hincke nor ChevaUer Bunsen can, reveal to
us the secret of the origin of the Egyptians, we, at all
events, know that they were majestically-minded with
respect to the table. The science of living was well
understood by them ; and the science of killing was
splendidly rewarded; seeing that the soldiery, besides
liberal pay, allowance of land, and exemption from tribute,
received daily five poimds of bread, two of meat, and a
quart of wine. With such rations they ought not to'
have been beaten by the Persians, when the latter had
60 degenerated, that their almost sole national boast was,
that they could drink deeper than any other men, without
seeming half so drunk. The Egyptians, too, were tole-
rably stout hands, and heads to boot, at the wine-pot ; and
there were few among even their Kings who, like the
King of Castile, would have choked of thirst, because the
grand butler was not by to hand the cup.

The pulse and fruits of Egypt, the fish of the Nile,
the com waving in its fields, which needed neither sun
nor rain to exhibit productiveness, — aU these were the
envy, and partly the support, of surrounding nations.
The com was especially prized ; and a reported threat of
St. Athanasius to obstruct the importation of Egyptian
com into Constantinople, threw the Emperor Constau-
tine into a fit of mingled fright, fever, and fury.

An Egyptian Squire commonly possessed a hundred or
two cows and oxen, three hundred rams, four times that

3i2 TASLE TEAITS.

number of goats, and five times that number of swine,
for the supply of his own little household. The apart-
ments in the mansions of these gentlemen were beauti-
fully painted, and were furnished with tables, chairs, and
couches which have supplied models for the upholstery
of modern times. They were lovers of music, and wil-
lingly suspended conversation at their feasts, in order to
listen to the " concord of sweet sounds."

Cleopatra was but a febrile creature ; but she sat down
with good appetite, and love in her eyes, to the banquet
given by Antony, at which fifteen whole boars smoked
upon the board. But Cleopatra, fraU and fragile, like
many thin people, ate heartUy; and when she herself
treated Csesar, it was with such a banquet that slaves
died to procure it, and the guests who were present won-
dered at the rarities of which they partook. There was
every thing there that gastronomy could think of, except
mutton, — an exception in favour of the divine Ammon
with the ram-like head. I believe that even roast-beef
and plum-pudding were not lacking ; for these delicacies
were popular in Thebes, as was broiled and salted goose,
with good brown stout, strong barley- wine, to cheer the
spirits and assist digestion.

Excessively proud, too, were the old Egyptians of their
cuhnary ability. When the Egyptians, under their
King, attacked Ochus, Sovereign of Persia, the former
were thoroughly beaten, and their Monarch was cap-
tured. Ochus treated him as courteously as the Black
Prince did John of France, and invited him to his own
table, at the simplicity of which the Egyptian laughed
outright. "Prince," said the uncourteous captive, "if
you would reaUy like to know how happy Kings should
feed, just let my cooks — if you have caught the rascals, as
you have me — ^prepare you a true Egyptian supper."
Ochus consented, enjoyed; himself amazingly at the ban-
quet, and then, "turning to his Egyptian prisoner,

TABLE or THE AlfCIENT AST) MODERN EGXPTIAITS. 343

punished him hy saying, " Why, \yhat a sorry fool art
thou, whose ambition has lost thee such repasts, and
reduced thee to henceforth envy, as thou wUt, the mode-
rate meals that suffice us honest Persians ! " The implied
threat was worse than the sentiment.

The dinner-table of the Egyptians was sometimes
covered with a Unen cloth imitating palm-leaves, some-
times left uncovered. Plates and knives, but not forks,
were in common use. In place of the latter were short-
handled spoons of gold, silver, ivory, tortoise-shell, or
alabaster. The dining-table was circular: ornamented
rolls of wheaten bread were placed before each guest ;
and supplies of the same were heaped in gay-looking
baskets on the side-board, where also were kept the wine,
the water, ewer, ' and napkins, which slaves, fair or
swarthy, Greek or Negro, were ready to present at the
bidding of the guests.

Previous to sitting down to the repast, the company
put a spur to their appetite, and a cordial to their sto-
mach, in the shape of pungent vegetables or strong
liqueurs. Glasses for beer, decanters and goblets for
wine, appear among the ancient pictorial illustrations of
Egyptian table-furniture. It would seem, too, from the
position of those at table, that they rose from their
chairs to challenge each other to drink, to propose toasts
or healths, or to inflict speeches upon the vexed ears of
compulsory hsteners.

In these " counterfeit presentments " of Egyptian life
may be seen the entire science of epicureanism, and its
practical application put into action. The poultry-yard,
the slaughter-houses, the markets and the kitchen, are so
graphically depicted, that we see at once, that the art of
making life comfortable was one most profoundly
respected by the ancient and mysterious people. The
selecting, purchasing, and killing are vividly portrayed.
The cooking is carried on in a large bronze caldron, on

344 TABLE TEAITS.

a tripod, over a fire, which is stirred by an under-cook,
with a poker that may have been bought any day at
Eippon and Burton's. The butcher is there, too, in
order decently to dissect the fowls ; and our ancient friend
carries before him the identical steel for sharpening his
knife, which may be seen any day hanging from the
waists of the butchers of London. There is a pastrycook,
also, in one of these " civil monuments of Egypt," who
is carrying a tray of tartlets on his head ; and to the
tray is appended the inscription signifying " one thou-
sand," which probably means, that this "Birch, Pyramid-
place, Cairo," drives such a trade, that he makes and
sells a thousand tarts or a thousand varieties of them
daily.

A dinner fresco, in a tomb at Thebes, shows us an
entertainment given by a naval officer to some of his pro-
fessional brethren. This fresco is described as being in
compartments, and, perhaps, the most curious is that in
which " you see on one side the arrival of an aristocratic
guest, in his chariot, attended by a train of running foot-
men, one of whom hastens forward to announce his
arrival by a knock at the door, sufficient to satisfy the
critical ear, and rouse the somnolent obesity, of the
sleepiest and fattest hall-porter in Grosvenor-square.
The other compartment presents you with a cotip-d'ceil of
the poultry -yard, shambles, pantry; and kitchen ; and is
completed by a side view of a novel incident. A grey-
headed mendicant, attended by his faithful dog, and who
might pass for Ulysses at his palace-gate, is receiving,
from the hands of a deformed, but charitable, menial,
a bull's head, and a draught of that beer, for the inven-
tion of which we are beholden to the Thebans."

The story of Mycerinus, the Egyptian King, is grandly
told by Mr. Arnold, in his popular volume of poems ; and,
succinctly, by Herodotus. An incident of the story con-
nects it with our subject, Mycerinus was persecuted by

TABLE or THE ANCIENT AND MODEEN EGYPTIANS. 345

the gods for rendering Egypt tappy, instead of oppressing
it, like liis predecessors, and as the oracles had declared it
should he oppressed for many years to come. In punish-
ment for such impious piety, as his offence may he called,
poor Mycerinus was told hy the oracle at Buto, that he
should live only six years longer. "When Mycerinus
heard this, seeing that his sentence was now pronoimced
against him, he ordered a great numher of lamps to be
made, and, having lighted them, whenever night came on,
he drank and enjoyed himself, never ceasing night or day,
roaming about the marshes and groves, wherever he could
hear of places most suited for pleasure ; and he had
recourse to this artifice for the purpose of convicting the
oracle of falsehood, that by turning the nights into days,
he might live twelve years instead of six." Poor fool!
He probably succeeded in his object, but after a sorry
fashion. It may be good poetry to say that —

" The test of all ways

To lengthen onr days
Is to take a few hours from night, my dear ;"

but it is bad in principle, and universally unsuccessful in
practice.

A recent describer of his travels in Egypt has said,
that nothing is so easy as to show that the Egyptians
gave jovial banquets within the sepulchral haU of tombs.
I think that nothing would be so difiB.cult as to prove
this. The nearest approach to it would he the case of
the skeleton that was carried about at Egyptian ban-
quets, the bearer, at the same time, warning the guests
that, eat, drink, and laugh as they might, to that "com-
plexion they must come" at last. The assertion, how-
ever, was probably made, in part, to excuse a barbarous
festival, at which the writer was present, in the tombs of
Eilythyias. The locale was one of the huge halls, whose
colossal columns serve to support the huger mountain

346

TABLE TEAIIS.

that is above. The dinner, we are told, was laid out
between the columns, with strings of small lamps sus-
pended in festoons over head.

The civilized and Christian ladies and gentlemen who
were the guests at this feast, broke up the coffins of the
pagan and barbarian Kings and Queens, in order to pro-
cure wood to boil their vegetables! They laughed,
joked, and sang joyous songs, and wondered what the
buried majesty of Misraim would say, could it burst its
cerements, and see northern men of unknown tongues
drinking Champagne at its august feet. And if, for a
moment, a reflecting guest contrasted the savage revelry
with the ensigns hung out by the King of Terrors to inti-
mate his irresistible' dominion over the company, — why,
reflection was soon banished by the appearance of the
AwaHm and Grhawazi girls, whom strong coffee and more
potent brandy had primed for their lascivious dancing.
" O Father Abraham ! what these Christians are !"

These tombs are fuU of instruction to those who can
read them. They show us that the chief butler and cook
— the " keeper of the drinks," and the Prince (sor) of his
cooks — were probably Princes of the blood of Pharaoh.
In all pictorial representations of banquets, it is the eldest
son who hands the viands to his father, the eldest daugh-
ter to the mother. The .bill of fare 'of the trimestrial
banquet of the dead, held in the noble haU of the tomb
of Nahrai at Benihassan, is still extant. It is as long as
that of a score of Lord Mayors' ; and hundreds of men
were fed from what remained. All the retainers of Nah-
rai, who was a Prince in Egypt a full century before the
time of Joseph, were buried in the vaults beneath the
hall ; and every one who could claim kindred with them
had a right to partake of the feast. The manner of ser-
vice appears to have been after this fashion : — The
youngest children of the house received the viands from
the cooks, and those children passed them on to the elder,

TABLE OP THE AlfCIEIfT AND MODEEN EGYPTIAN'S. 347

until they reacted the first-born, who placed the dish at
the feet of his sire, by whom a portion was cut off, which
the daughters, according to their agcf transferred from
one to the other tiU it reached the separate table of their
mother. All remained standing, at these festival-dinners,
untn the two seniors of the house had finished the first
dishes of the repast. Portions from these were then
served to the children, when the whole party sat down
together ; the children eating of the remains of the first
dish, whUe "the governor" and his lady partook of the
integral second ; and so on, through a long service. On
the wall of a tomb at Ghizeh, — ^that of Eimei, one of the
Princes of the Saphis, — the bill of fare directs ninety-
eight dishes to be placed, at once, on the table, at the
fortnightly banquets which glad survivors held in honour
of the departed, who appear to me always to enjoy an
immense advantage over those whom they leave behind
them.

But now let us look in upon the modern Egyptian.
If he be the master of a house, while he is at ablutions
and prayers, his wife is making his coffee ; and it is to be
hoped that she is allowed the privilege alluded to in the
Augustinian sentiment, orat qui laborat. The cup of
coffee and pipe, taken early, generally suffice the Egyp-
tian till noon, at which hour comes the actual breakfast,
usually consisting of bread, butter, eggs, cheese, clotted
cream, or curdled milk, with, perhaps, a thin pastry, satu-
rated with butter, folded like a pancake, and sprinkled
with sugar. A dish of horse-beans (terrific dish !) some-
times adorns the table. They have been slowly simmer-
ing through a whole night in an earthen vessel, buried
up to the neck in the hot ashes of an oven ; and the sauce
for this indigestible dish is linseed oil or butter, and,
perhaps, a little lime-juice. Those to whom butter is
difficult of procuring, or to whom good dinners are rari-
ties, often make a meal, and are content, upon dry bread

848 TABLE TEAITS.

dipped in a mixture of salt, pepper, wild marjoram, with
various other herhs, pungent seeds, and a quantity of chick-
peas. The bread»is dipped into this ragoilt, and so eaten.
The supper is the principal meal ia Egypt. The cook-
ing is especially for this repast; and what remains is
appropriated for the next day's dumer, despite the
apophthegm of BoUeau, that —

" XIn diner reahavffe ne vaut jamais rien"

It is only an amiahle pater jamilias that dines with his
wives and children ; and, in truth, where the wife appears
in the plural numher, the husband can hardly expect a
quiet meal. The washing before eating is almost of uni-
versal observation. The table is a round tray placed low,
so that the squatters on the ground may conveniently eat
thereat. Bread and limes are placed on the tray. The
bread is round, as among the ancient Egyptians, and
often serves as a plate. The spoons, too, are of the mate-
rials I have named in speaking of the older nation. The
dishes are of tinned copper or china ; and several are put
upon the table at one time. Among the Tm-ks, only me
dish appears at a time. Twelve persons, with one knee
on the groimd and the other (the right) raised, may sit
roimd a tray three feet in diameter. Each guest tucks
up his right sleeve, and prepares for his work, after imi-
tating the master of the house in uttering a low Bis-
millah, "In the name of God." The host sets the second
example of commencing to eat ; and the guests again fol-
low the good precedent. Knives and forks are not used ;
spoons only for food like soups and rice. The thumb and
two forefingers are the instruments otherwise employed;
and they are employed dehcately enough. Generally, a
piece of bread is taken, doubled together, and dipped into
the dish, so as to enclose the morsel of meat which the
guest designs for himself, or, if it be a savoury bit, and
lie be courteous, intended for presentation to his neigh-

TABLE 01' THE AlTOrENT AND MODERN EGYPTIANS. 349

bour. The food is suited to such practices. It consists
of stewed meats, with vegetables of endless variety, or of
small morsels of mutton or lamh, roasted on skewers-,
clarified butter compensates for want of fat in the meat.
A fowl is summarily torn asunder by two hands, either of
the same person, or the right hands of two guests. Dex-
terous fellows, like our first-rate carvers, wiU "joint" a
fowl with one hand. The Arabs do not use the left hand
at aU at table, because it is used for unclean purposes.
The disjointing is easily done ; and even a whole lamb,
stufied with pistachio nuts, may be pulled to pieces much
more easily than we divide a chicken. Water-melons,
sliced, set to cool, and watched, lest serpents should
approach, and poison the dish by their breath, generally
form, when in season, a part of an Egyptian meal, — a
meal which usually closes with a dish of boiled rice, mixed
with butter, salt, and pepper ; but occasionally this dish
is followed by a bowl of water, with raisins that have
been boiled in it, and sugar added, with a little rose-
water, to give it an odour of refinement. A bottle of
six-year-old port is preferable.

As soon as each person has satisfied his appetite, he
ceases, murmurs, "Praise be to God!" drinks his sweet-
ened water, rises, and goes his way. They who drink
wine, do it in private, or with confidential friends, call it
"rum" to save their orthodoxy; and if a visitor call
while this process is going on, the ready servant informs
him that his master is abroad or in the harem. Sweet
drinks and sherbets, approved by the Law and the Pro-
phet, axe in common use, and pipes and prayer end " the
well-spent day."

Egyptian women have some libtle fancies connected
with the table that may be mentioned. In order to
achieve that proportion of obesity which constitutes the
beautiful, they eat mashed beetles, and they chew frank-
incense and laudanum, to perfume the breath. The

350 TABLE TBAITS.

Egyptian peasantry live upon the very sparest of diets,
not often being able to procure even rice. They, like the
Bedouins, are, however, remarkable for strength and
health ; but an Egyptian or Bedouin diet would not pro-
duce the same results in an English climate.

It win have been observed, that in Egypt each man
says his own " grace," before and after meat, for himself.
The same custom prevails in Servia. At table, instead of
one person asking for a blessing on the food, each indi-
vidual expresses, in Ms own words, (an improvement on the
Egyptian plan,) his gratitude to the Supreme Being. In
drinking, the toast or sentiment of the Servian is, " To
the glory of God ! " and a very excellent sentiment, only
the Servian is apt to get very drunk over it. The Ser-
vian qualification for a chairman at a convivial party is,
that he should be able to deliver an extempore prayer ;
and a very good qualification, provided it be not a mere
formality, and that the spirit of prayer be the strongest
spirit there. The combination, however, of Collects and
conviviahty reminds me of some strange parties at old-
fashioned houses in our provincial towns, where comic
songs are followed by discussions on the Millennium, and
seed-cake And ginger wine season both.

I have spoken more of the achievements of Egyptian
cookery, than of the quality of the cooks. The fact is,
that it is far more easy to speak decidedly of the former,
than of the latter. Mr. St. John describes the Aiab
cooks in Egypt as being great gastronomers, and serving
up " their dishes in a style which could not have dis-
pleased Elagabalus himself! " Mr. Lane equally lauds
their excellence, and the delicacy of the manner of eating.
Herr Weme, on the other hand, — and he is a man of
wide experience in this matter, — speaks very differently
both of Turkish eating and Arab cooking in Egypt.
Weme, indeed, speaks of the remote district of BeUad
Sudam, rather than of Cairo and Alexandria; but his

TABLE OF THE ANCIEUT AlTD MODBEN EGTPTIAHS. 351

observations have an extensive application, nevertheless.
He is disgusted with the general want of cleanliness ;
and he remarks, that " the cooks are dirtier in themselves,
and more filthy in their dress, than any other class of
people." The dirty. Arah cook is in a dirty kitchen, a
dirty pipe ever in his mouth, and with the dirtiest of
hands maniptdating savoury preparations for the mouths
of his masters. He knows httle more than how to
boU or roast meat, boil beans, and prepare vegetable
dishes. Even the female slaves of the harem, who act
as cooks to their lords, are remarkable for uncleanli-
ness. "All the meat to be used for the dinner is
sodden together iu one huge caldron, and separated
for arrangement in various dishes, all of which partake
of general flavovir, having been cooked together, and
there is but scant nourishment iti any of them." The
vegetables are described by him as being wretchedly
cooked, and saturated with bad butter, or the water in
which they have been boiled. The dishes are not larger
than our plates ; the plates, when such are used by the
guests, about the size of our saucers : but " each guest
at once plunges his hand into any or every dish that
pleases him, and gropes about tiU he gets hold of the
best bits, pulls them out, and swallows them. Very
often a bite is only taken from the piece thus seized
on, and the rest returned to the dish ; but, ia spite of
the clean treatment it has undergone, it is again soon
seized hold of by another, and, perchance, again simi-
larly handled, tiQ all is finally bolted. The Turks eat incre-
dibly rapidly, as they bolt eveiy thing, and keep cram-
ming into the mouth more, ere the former mouthful has
been swallowed ; whUe a smacking of Hps, and licking oi
sauce-dripping fingers, succeed, and proclaim their pleasure
in the meaj. Bread is generally to be found on the table,
but neither salt, oil, vinegar, nor pepper; although,
when they dine with Europeans, they show no dislike to

352 TiBtE TEAITS.

highly-seasoned dishes or strong drinks. Although these
dishes are numerous, they contain hut little. If there
are many courses, or more dishes than the tahle will hold
at one time, the entertainer is ever busied making signs
to the attendants which are to be removed; and not
seldom the guest finds, that the very dish he was about
to help himseK from is carried off from under his very
nose. The Pasha used often to amuse himself by playing
tricks on his guests, by ordering off, with the utmost
rapidity, those dishes he saw their longing eyes fixed on,
ere their outstretched hands could convey any portion of
them into their watering mouths. At first, in spite of
the pilcm, we never were quick enough to get sufficient to
eat, not having been brought up to bolt our food ; and
that the Turks are so quickly satisfied, and by so little, is
wholly owing to this bolting of their food, is undeniable ;
and this also produces the repeated eructations they so
loudly and joyfully give vent to, as proving their high
health and vigour."

The Turks and Arabs of Egypt " chaw," carrying
their quid between the front teeth and upper lip. The
blacks of Gesira mix tobacco and nitron, dissolving the
latter in an infusion of the former. This they call
" bucea ;" and they take a mouthful of it at a time, which
they keep rinsing over their teeth and gums, for, perhaps,
a quarter of an hour, before they eject it. They have
"bucca " parties, as we have tea parties ; and then is the
circle in the very highest state of enjoyment, — ^imbibing,
gurgling, gargling, and ejecting, — and not a word uttered,
except at the close, when the guests return thanks to
their host "for this very delightful evening I"

Egypt was the locality wherein the saints of old espe-
pecially shone with respect to their table arrangements,
or their contempt for them ; and these gentlemen fairly
claim a due share of notice at our hands. So, now " for
the Desert!"

THE DIET OF SAINTS.

Feasting, under certain circumstances, at certain seasons,
and for certain ends, is undoubtedly sanctified by apo-
stolical recommendation. The earlier fathers, however, say
little on the subject. Clement of Alexandria mentions
weekly fasts at Easter; and Tertullian, in an article espe-
cially recommending the observation, bitterly bewails that
it has fallen into a general disuse. The Church of Alex-
andria also ordained a fast on Wednesdays and Fridays ; —
on Wednesday, because on that day Christ was betrayed ;
on Friday, because on that day he was crucified. In
Alexandria too arose the saying, that the aspen-tree shook
because it was the tree from which the wo6d for the cross
was taken. The fasting generally consisted in abstaining
from food until three o'clock in the afternoon, but a reli-
gious liberty was allowed, connected with its observance,
until the sixth century, when a Council of Orleans decreed
excommunication against all who did not fast according to
the laws of the Church. Nor did the authorities stop at
this penalty; for, in later times the unlucky wight detected
in relieving hunger by eating prohibited meats, was punished
by having all his teeth drawn — the oifending members
were summarily extracted. The prohibited food in Lent
was flesh, eggs, cheese, and wine ; subsequently flesh alone
was prohibited ; and this tenderness of orthodoxy so dis-
gusted the Greek Church, that it lost its temper, flew ojff
into schism, and forgot charity in maintaining that the use
of meat in Lent was damnable .

354 TABLE TEAITS.

The Xerophagia, or "dry eatings," were tlie days on
which nothing was eaten but bread and salt. This was in
very early times. Innovators added pulse, herbs, and
fruits — no unpleasant fare in hot countries. The Monta-
, nists made this fast obligatory, and were very much cen-
sured in consequence-. The Essenes, who, whether as Jews
or Jewish Christians in Alexandria, were singularly strict
observers of the Sabbath, carrying their strictness to a
point which my readers may find in Jortin, if they are
curious thereupon, observed also this fast very rigidly, and
on the stated days ate nothing with their bread but salt
and hyssop.

Most of the saints recorded on the canon roll of Komej
appear to have maintained very indifferent tables, and to
have considerably marred thereby their strength and
efl&ciency. Saint Fulgentius abstained from everything
savoury, aind even drank no wine, says his biographer;
which looks as if the good men generally did i&ke some for
their stomach's sake ; and indeed Fulgentius himself took
a little negus when he was indisposed to plain water; and
" small blame to him" for so harmless a proceeding. St.
Eugenius never broke his fast till sunset ; and when a
bunch of grapes was sent to a sick monk of the desert, he
forwar;ded it to a second, and a second to a third, and so
on to a twentieth, until this health-inspiring offering, made
for man by God, was withered and nasty. These monks
did not pray like Pope : —

" The blessings thy free bounty gives
Let me not cast away,
For God is paid when man receives, —
To enjoy is to obey."

But this is a sentiment in the opposite extreme, or might
be easily carried in that direction. Palladius says of one
of these desert monks, St. Macarius, that for years together

THE DIET OF SAINTS. 355

he lived only on raw herbs and pulse ; that during three
consecutive years he existed on four or five ounces of bread
daily ; and that he consumed but one small measure of oil
in a twelvemonth — a substitute for the gallons of sack with
which profaner men washed down their modicum of bread.
St. Macarius, however, surpassed himself in Lent ; and an
alderman might be excused for fainting at the idea of
a human being passing forty days and nights in a standing
position, with no more substantial support than a few raw
cabbage-leaves on a Sunday ! St. Genevieve was hardly
inferior in austerity, and only ate twice in the week, on
Sundays and Thursdays, and then only beans and bread.
When she grew old and infirm, and she was prematurely
both, she indulged in a little fish and milk. Simeon
StyUtes surpassed both in culpable austerity. He spent
an entire Lent without allowing anything to pass his lips;
and at other seasons this slow suicidal saint never ate but
on Sundays. His chief occupation upon the pillar, which
looks much more like a column of pride than a monument
of humility, wasin praying and bowing. An admiring monk,
who must have had as little of active usefulness to employ
his time with as poor Simeon, exultingly records, that he
did not eat once during the day, but that he made one
thousand two hundred and forty-four bows of adoration in
that time. Oh, Simeon ! well for thee, poor fellow-mortal, if
those reverences be not accounted rather as homage to
thyself, than to Him to whom homage is due.

It is extremely difficult for the human mind to realize
the idea of a Bishop of London never breaking his fast till
the evening, and then being satisfied with a solitary egg,
an inch of bread, and a cup of milk and water; such,
however, is said to have been the daily fare of St. Cedd, a
predecessor of Dr. Blomfield in the metropolitan diocese.
" How unlike my Beverly !" St. Severinus, an Austrian
prelate, had a more indifierent table than St. Cedd, espe-

^55

TABLE TEAITS.

cially in Lent, when he ate but once a-week. St. William
of Bourges iiever tasted meat after he was ordained. St.
Theodosius, the Cenobiarch, was more frugal still, and bread
often lacked, -we are told, even for the holy offices of the
Church. This would seem to intimate, however, that the
officers of the Church may have eaten it. Be this as it
may, when bread was needed for the sacrament, a string of
mules miraculously appeared in the desert, bearing the
necessary provision. " Necessary provision," may be well
said, for if the Cenobites consumed little themselves, they
presided at tables where occasionally sat a hundred hungry
guests, who must have much needed a dinner, seeing that
they crossed the desert to obtain it.

Some of the most self-denying saints, like St. Felix of
Nola, if they declined wine in its liquid form, took it in
pills, — swallowing grapes. St. Paul, the first hermit, lived
on the fruit of a tree which produced a fresh supply daily,
the bread to temper which was brought every morning by
a raven. The . diet was sufficiently invigorating to give
strength to the modest man to bite off his own tongue, and
spit it in the face of a lady who tried to tempt him, as the
Irish nymph tempted the uncourteous St. Kevin of Glen-
dalough. He was, in abstinence, only second to St,
Isidore, who, when hungry, burst into tears, not because
God had mercifully provided him wherewith to satisfy
lawful appetite, but because, sinful man that he was, he
dared to eat at all !

I have spoken of the abstinence of a Bishop of London ;
there was a Bishop of Worcester, Wulstan, who is worthy
of being mentioned with him. Wulstan was rather fond
of savoury viands, but he was one day, during mass, so
distracted by the smell ()f meat roasting in a kitchen, which
must have been very close to his church, that he made a
vow to abstain from meat for ever. But I do not know if
he kept his vow. St. Euthymius was a more rational man.

THE DIET OP SAINTS. 357

for he taught his moiiks that to satisfy hunger was no
crime, but thu-t to abuse appetite and God's gifts too, was
an offence. St. Macedonius, the Syrian, did not discover
this truth until he had so impaired his powers by long
fasts, that it was impossible to restore them — as he tried
to do on a diet of dry bread. And yet he was so prema-
turely gifted, that his own birth is said to have been the
result of his own prayers !

The table kept by St. Publius for his monks was not of
a hberal character. He allowed them nothing but pulse
and herbs, coarse bread, and water. Nothing else! He
prohibited wine, milk, cheese, grapes, and even vinegar —
which every soiu: brother might have distilled from his own
ichor. From Easter to Whitsuntide was accounted a holi-
day time, and during that festive period, the brotherhood
were allowed to grow hilarious, if they could, upon a gill of
oil a-piece. St. Paula, "the widow," subjected her nuns
to the same lively fare, and she moreover fiercely denounced
all ideas of personal neatness and cleanliness, as an unclean-
ness of the mind. She accounted herself wise in so doing,
but her nuns might fairly have put to her the question
asked by Mizen, in the Fair Quaker of Deal : — " Do'st
thou think that nastiness gives thee a title to knowledge?"

St. John Chrysostom was as severe as Paula, and it would
not have cost Olympias much to defray, as she insisted upon
doing, the expenses of his table. The table which the saint
kept for guests was, however, hospitably and delicately
laden — and perhaps this was an inconsistency in a man who
censured what he also encouraged.

They who have made a saint of Charlemagne, aver that
he broke his fast but once a day, and that after sunset. I
cannot believe this of a man who dealt so largely in the
eggs laid by his hens, and in vegetables raised in his garden.
Nor do I beheve that St. Sulpicius Severus would have
written so capital a biography of St. Martin, had he lived.

358 TABLE TEAITS.

as it is said, on herbs, boiled witb a little vinegar for
seasoning. Surely, we have heard of the "kitchen" of
gentlemen like Sutpicius, and if his condensed Scripture
History be as dry as the bread he ate during the task, his
letters to Claudia seem to have been written on more
generous food. Not that he was immoderate. He kept
one cook, a very "plain cook" indeed, as Sulpioius
describes him, when he despatched the boy to Bishop
Paulinus with a letter which commences with a startling bit
of episcopal history, namely, that " all the cooks in the
kitchen of Paulinus had left him without warning, because
the prelate was getting too careless about good living,"
Some commentators say, that the letter was a joke j but
the reply to it is extant, and therein it may be seen how
Paulinus did not look upon it as a joke.

Southey, in his " St. Eomuald," mirthful as the story is,
has not exceeded the truth, or rather has not departed
from the narrative told by the good man's biographers : —

" Then, Sir, to see how he would mortify
The flesh ! If any one had dainty fare,
Good man, he would oome there j
And look at all the delicate things, and .cry,

0 Belly ! Belly !
You would he gormandizing now, I know ;

But it shall not he so ! —
Home, to your bread and water. Home, I tell ye."

And thus says Alban Butler of him: — " He never
would admit of the least thing to give a savour to the
herbs or meal-gruel on which he supported himself. If
anything was brought him better dressed, he, for the
greater self-denial, applied it to his nostrils, and said,
' Oh Gluttony, Gluttony ! thou shalt never taste this !
Perpetual war is declared against thee ! ' St. WUliam of
Maleval was of the same opinion when he cried because he
ate his dry bread with a relish, and found that what he

THE DIET OF SAINTS. 359

called " sensuality " was not inseparable from the coarsest
food. St. Benedict of Anian, on the other hand, did
not decline the use of a little wine, when it was given him ■
while St. Martinianus, again, lived upon biscuits and
water, brought to him twice a-year — and very nasty fare
it must have been towards the end of each six months.
It must have been worse than that of St. Peter Damian,
who prided himself on never drinking water fresh, and
thought there was virtue in having it four-and-tweuty
hours old. St. Tarasius must have maintained a more
decent table, for it is said of him that he used to take the
dishes from it and give of them to the poor ; and honour
be to his name, because of his good sense and his charity !
Our venerable acquaintance of the principality, St. David,
was not half so wise, however well-intentioned ; but St.
Charles, Earl of Flanders, followed the better course, and
not only lived moderately well, but acted better, by daily
distributing seven hundred loaves to the poor. The
Welsh saints, generally, kept as austere a table as St.
David. There was, for instance, the cacophonous Win-
waloe of Winwaloe, who kept his monks at starving point
all the week, recalling them to life on Sundays by mi-
croscopic rations of h^rd cheese and shell-fish. His own
fare was barley-bread strewn with ashes, and when Lent
arrived, the quantity of ashes was doubled, in honour of
the season ! St. Thomas Aquinas was so abstracted that
he never knew, at dinner, what he was eating, nor could
remember, after it, if he had dined, which was likely
enough. St. Frances, Widow, foundress of the Collations,
was in more full possession of her wits ; as, indeed, the lady
saints were, generally. She had her little fancies indeed,
which were " only charming Fanny's way," and her be-
verage at eve was dirty water, out of a human skull ; but
she had no mercy for lazy devotees, and invariably told
sighing wives that they had active duties to perform, and

360 TABLE TRAITS.

that they had better keep out of monasteries, at least till
they were widows. She was a good, humble woman ; and,
as a commentator says of the abstinence of St. Euphrasia,
without humility these' facts would be but facts of devils !

Another gleam of good sense shines upon us from the
person of St. Benedict. He drank wine, and so did his
monks of Vicovara, who liked his wine better than either
the toast or sentiment with which he passed it round to
them, and who tried to get rid of him by poisoning his
glass j but the saint, full of inspired suspicion, made over
it the sign of the cross, and away went the flask into fifty
fragments. The taste of the good saint was known after
he left Vicovara, and a pious soul once sent him a couple
of bottles of wine by a faithless messenger, who delivered
but one. " Mind what you are about," said St. Benedict,
"when you draw the other cork for yourself" The knave
was, not abashed, but when he did secretly open the other
bottle for the solace of his own thirsty throat, he found
nothing therein but a lively serpent, which glided from
him after casting at him a reproachful look !

If St. Benedict was right in the ordering of his table,
why St. John of Egypt was wrong, for he never drank
anything but stagnant water, nor ,ate anything cooked
by fire ; even his bread he complacently swallowed before
it was baked ; — and what his liver was like, it would puzzle
any but a physician even to conjecture.

There was infinitely more sense in the table kept by an
abbot of the compound Christian and Pagan title and
name of St. Plato. He never ate anything but what had
been raised or procured by the labour of his own hands ;
he was consequently never in debt with respect to his
household expenses, and if all men so far followed the
example of St. Plato, who was a better practical philo-
sopher than his heathen namesake, what a happy world we
should make of it ! There would be fewer Christmas bill^

THE DIET OF SAINTS. 361

and many more joyous dinners, not only at Christmas,
but aU the year round !

^ St. Plato deserves our respect ; he would not live on
alms. He was more useful in his generation than the men
who, like St. Aphraates, were content to exist on the elee-
mosynary contributions of the faithful, or than those who,
like Zozimus and his followers, wandered through the
desert, trusting to chance and calling it providence. What,
compared with our friend Plato, was that St. Droun, the
so-called patron of shepherds, who during forty years
taught them nothing, and lived on the barley-bread which
they brought him in return for his instruction.

I have given one or two instances of the spare tables
kept by a few of our ancient bishops ; I may here add to
them the name of St. Elphege, some time Bishop of Win-
chester, and subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury. The
smell of roast meat was never known in his palace on any
but " extraordinary occasions." This, however, is a very
indefinite term, and the table of this primate may have
been one to make a cardinal give unctuous thanks for
rich mercies, five days out of the seven. There was cer-
tainly gastronomic work to do in some of the ancient godly
households, or St. James of Sclavonia would not have
passed so many years in one, as he did, in the capacity of
cook, " improving" the occasion, by drawing ideas of heU
from his own fires, which were for ever roasting savoury
joints, like those which strike the visitors with awe and
appetite in the kitchens at Maynooth.

If in some houses there were busy kitchens, in others
there were soft couches, whereon digestion might progress.
Thus Adalbert, Bishop of Prague, was a Saint and Martyr;
and it is said, that he had a most comfortable bed in his
dormitory, but that he never slept upon it ! Then, what
was the bed for ? It is added, that he fasted in private
with great severity, — ^but it is no more "of faith" to

362 TABLE TEAIT3.

believe this, iliaii it is that he slept every night on the
floor, under, and not upon, his own excellent feather-bed;
for what says the old refrain t —

" A notre coucher
TJn lit, des draps tlanes,

Une

digue daine, ton !
Voila la vie que ces moines font ! "

But he may have been a profane fellow who wrote these
rude rhymes ; and we will no more implicitly trust him,
than we will the prose historians of the doings and
dealings of the saintly men.

It is not an unusual thing to find wine-bibbers men-
tioned among the members of holy communities ; where
wine was generally supposed to be a luxury never em-
ployed but for the service of the altar, — and perhaps of
the sick. The venerable Bede tells a story of a " brother,"
whom he had known, and whom he wishes to God he had
never known, and who was given to worship the spigot.
Bede does not give his name, but certifies that the too
jolly Mar lived ignobly in a noble monastery, where he
was often reproved for his acts of drunkenness, and only
tolerated because of his gifts, — not spiritual, but as a
carpenter. He was a terrible tippler, but a hard work-
man to boot, and would, at any time, rather labour all
day and all night at his bench than join the brethren in
chapel. Indeed, when he did go, his thoughts were running
on something else. He was like the profane Yorkshire
farmer, who praised the institution of the Sabbath be-
cause it not only brought roast beef with it as a sacred
observance, but it authorized him to attend in his pew at
church, where, said he, " I puts up my legs and thinks
o' nothing ! " Bede's carpenter was characteristically
punished for his bibbing; and the story was made much

THE DIET OF SAINTS. 363

of, by way of monition to others. It was to this effect : —
" He, falling sick, and being reduced to extremity, called
the brethren, and with much lamentation, and like one
damned, began to tell them that he saw hell open, and
Satan at the bottom thereof, and also Caiaphas, with
the others that slew our Lord, by him delivered up to
avenging flames. ' In whose neighbourhood,' said he, ' I
see a place of eternal perdition prepared for me, miserable
wretch that I am ! ' The brothers, hearing these words,
began seriously to exhort him that he should repent even
then, while he was in the flesh. He answered in despair,
— ' I have no time now to change my course of life, when
I have myself seen my judgment passed.' When he had
uttered these words, he died, without having received the
saving maticum; and his body was buried in the remotest
part of the monastery; nor did any one dare to say
masses, sing psalms, or even, to pray for him." Which
seems a very hard case ; for if any one needed such service
it was he ; and the Church's ability to extricate him
could not be denied, when ghe was duly pre-paid for the
service.

Curiously enough, St. Monica, the mother of St. Au-
gustin, ranks among the wine-bibbers. Her pious parents
left their children to be brought up by a servant-maid,
who had more zeal than discretion, and who would allow
none of the children to drink, were they ever so thirsty,
except at meal-times, and then only a drop or two of
water. " If you cannot restrain your desire to drink
now," she would say, "what will it be when you have
wine at command ?" Now, the effect of this speech was
exactly like that of the confessor to the hostler, when he
asked the latter, if he never greased the horses' teeth in
order to prevent them eating their corn. It gave the
young Monica a new idea. She was accustomed to draw
the wine for her father's table, and she henceforth began

364 TABLE TEAITS.

to drink a portion each time that she went to the cellar
with her pitcher. And I do not know that Mr. Millais, or
any other of the pre-Eaphaelite gentlemen, could have a
better subject for a picture, than that representing the
scene when the horrified nurse-maid beheld her young
charge indulging in her cups in the parental wine-vault.
The lecture she received worked her conversion, we are
told J. and she married, and became the mother of St.
Augustin, who so far followed the maternal example
that, in his earlier years, when, with his eyes upon heaven,
his heart was with the good things of the earth, his com-
monest prayer used to be, " Lord, make me religious, but
not just yet"

The nurse-maid of Monica deserved to have been the
wife, — and perhaps she was, — of St. Theodotus, the vintner
of Ancyra. He was a teetotaller who kept a tavern, and
who passed the live-long day in leaning over his counter
and begging his customers not to driuk ! Well, men have
been canonized for less useful service to their kind ;
and Theodotus was more worthily employed in keeping
drunkards from his wine-casks, than St. Pius V. was when,
every day before dinner, by way of mocking his appetite,
he resorted to the public hospitals, and kissed the ulcers
of the patients ! Nay, biographers tell us that an English
Protestant gentleman was suddenly converted to Eo-
manism, by observing the condescension and affection
with which Pius kissed the ulcers on the feet of some
poor men ! The pope, if he and the convert dined
together after this nasty ceremony, might have confessed
that he had been sore put to it for an argument that
should carry conviction to an English gentleman in search
of a religion.

Let us contrast this pope in his pride with a cardinal
in his fall. " When Wolsey," says Mr. Hunter the anti-
quary, "was dismissed by his tyrannical master to his

THE DIET OP SAINTS. 365

northern diocese, he passed many weeks at Scrooby. It is
a pleasing picture which his faithful servant, Cavendish,
gives of him at this period of his life : — ' Ministering
many deeds of charity, and attending on Sundays at some
parish church in the neighbourhood; hearing or saying-
mass himself, and causing some one of his chaplains to
preach to the people ; and that done, he would dine in
some honest house of that town, where should be distri-
buted to the poor a great alms, as well of meat and drink,
as of money to supply the want of sufficient meat, if the
number of the poor did so exceed of necessity.' " Wolsey
was no saint certainly, but he was as honest a man as
Pius, and a wiser when he fed the poor rather than kiss
their ulcers.

But there is no accounting for taste ; the Eussian Boni-
face used to roll himself among thorns and nettles, in order
to get an appetite, or to punish himself for indulging
over much. St. Germanus, on the other hand, commenced
every repast by putting ashes into his mouth ; — the modem
custom of beginning with oysters is certainly better both
for taste and stomach. St. Walthen took vrine, but then
he put spiders in it. St. Dominic, too, was singular in his
diet, and he sometimes spent his half-hour before dinner
in one of the most curious positions that gentlemen could
possibly fix upon. The Abbot of St. Vincent's one day
desired his company at dinner, but at the usual hour the
saint was in church, and had forgotten the invitation. In
the meantime the turkey and chine were spoiling, and the
hungry abbot despatched a monk in quest of the loiterer ;
the messenger hurried to the church, where, to his very
considerable astonishment, he beheld St. Dominic "ravished
in an ecstasy," whatever that may mean, " raised several
cubits above the ground, and without motion." The Saint,
on being told that dinner was ready, graciously smiled at
the intelligence, and gently descended to the ground.

366 TABLE TEAITS.

St. Laurence would have joked at this, as he did at his
own grilling. After he had lain for some time extended
on his gridiron, he calmly said to the executioner, " Will
you have the kindness to turn me, as I am quite done on
the under side?" The executioner, a trifle astonished, did
as he was required, and soon after, the Saint, again speak-
ing, said, " I shall be obliged if you'll take me up, as I am
now fit for eating." This story reminds me of the remark
made by an Irishman, when first told that St. Patrick had
crossed the ocean on a millstone : — " I can't contradict it !
He was a lucky fellow ! "

We ar6 told of St. Bernard, who used to walk before
dinner on the banks of the Jjake of Lausanne, that on
hearing two of his monks speak of the beauty of the lake,
he declared that no such lake existed, or he had been too
much absorbed ever to have noticed it. So the Trappists
used to glory in not knowing where or how they dined, or
recollecting anything about it ! All this shows less wisdom
at table than was exhibited by the royal St. Louis, who,
when a certain friar began to discuss doctrinal subjects
with the pullets, stopped him with the remark that " all
things had their time, and joking was good sauce with
chickens!"

St. Laurence Justinian, the first patriarch of Venice, was
far less indulgent than the royal saint- of France. He
was so little so, that when his thirsty monks sometimes
asked for a little wine, declaring that their throats felt as
dry as the high road in summer, he used quite as drily to
remark, that if they could not bear parched throats now,
what would they do in the fires of purgatory ? St. John
the Dwarf, Anchoret of Scete, cared as little for wine as
St. Laurence, but he was fond of fruit, and he obtained a
supply from a strange source. An old hermit bade him
plant his walking-staff in the ground, and he not only did
so, but he watered it regularly for three years, when it

THE DIET OP SAINTS. 367

bore pippins, sweeter than those that grew at Ribstone up
to the time of the death of the late baronet. Before this
miraculously-bearing stick the little man used to read
prayers as devoutly as Sir HoUyoak Goodrick, the present
Eibstone baronet, does to the villagers in his own parish
church, and for the same reason each had much to be
thankful for. It must be confessed that John the Dwarf
had more taste than his namesake of Cupertino, who not
only ate nothing but vegetables, but ate no vegetables that
any other human being could be induced to swallow. It
was such garbage as only pigs would condescend to.
Arcades arribo — ^nasty creatures both !

St. Francis of Assisium exhibited something more
of true humility at his table, with a touch of the false
metal notwithstanding. He ate nothing dressed by fire,
unless he were very ill, and even then he covered it with
ashes, or dipped it in cold water. His common daily
food was dry bread strewn with ashes ; but this founder
of the Friars' Minors had the good sense not to condemn
his followers to the rigorous diet he observed himself;
and " Brother Ass," as he familiarly called that self, was
in his own opinion worthy of no better fare.

There was a founder of another community who
exhibited more singularity than St. Francis, who, despite
some mistakes, was a man of whom none other dare
speak but with respect, — St. Ammon, founder of the
hermitages of Nitria. At the age of twenty-two this
young Egyptian noble married a fair girl of Memphis ;
and instead of a nuptial banquet, he treated his bride
to a reading of a particularly edifying chapter from St.
Paul, after which he withdrew to solitary meditation.
During eighteen years he occupied himself in training
balsam-trees all day, after which he returned home to a
supper of fruit and herbs ; then came that terrible re-
iteration of advice from St. Paul, followed by a separate

368 TABLE TRAITS.

solitary comment on the part of this exemplary pair. At
the end of the time above specified, he retired altogether
from domestic life, and settled alone on Mount Nitria,
and his biographers naively remark, this was "with his
wife's consent." This saint was of such a "complexion"
of virtue, that one day, on accidentally catching sight of an
uncovered portion of his own body, he was so shocked that
he fainted away. If he had only read " Erasmus Wilson,
on the Skin," he would have learned to look oftener at
his own, and would have been a cleaner man, a better
husband, a more grateful feeder, and an improved Christian.

But St. Bruno, the founder of the Carthusians, probably
exceeded all other originators of communities in the
"fierceness," so to speak, of his dietetic laws; he never
spared himself, nor his disciples. A Carthusian is never
permitted to eat meat under any pretence whatever. In
addition to this, they fast eight months in the year, and
I suppose they starve in Lent, for during that season
they are forbidden to eat what is called " white meats,"
that is, eggs, milk, butter, and cheese. Dry bread with
water is their Lenten fare; .and a peculiar law con-
nected with them is, that they can never change into
another order, because they would thereby profit a little
in the way of better living ; but a brother of any other
order may become a Carthusian, as thereby he increases
his mortifications and diminishes his diet. Of course
from these remarks the Carthusians of the "Charterhouse"
are excepted. If the thin spirit of St. Bruno ever scents
the juicy viands that adorn the well-spread table there,
it probably melts into thin air by the very force of disgust
or ghastly envy.

The table kept by St. Bridget, when she married Ulpho,
prince of Nericia, in Sweden, was a very modest one for so
princely a pair, but what was spared thereby was given to
the poor. Bridget and Ulpho, she sweet sixteen, he two

THE DIET OF SAINTS. 369

years more, read every evening the soothing chapter from
St. Paul, which formed the favourite study of St. Ammon
and his wife ; but, as it would appear, with indifferent
success. "They enrolled themselves,'' say their various
biographers, "in the Third Order of St. Francis, and lived
in their own house as if it had been a regular and austere
monastery." The biographers immediately add without
comment, — " They afterwards had eight children : four
boys and four girls;" and as the same paragraph goes on
to state that " all these children were favoured with the
blessings of divine grace,'' it may be fiiirly concluded that
a domestic observation of a monastic regularity and
austerity, is a course that will purchase blessings and olive-
branches.

The case of St. Gromer and his wife, the Lady Gwinmary,
may perhaps be cited as an exception. But this Gwinmary
was an exacting lady at all times, and when St. Gomer
betook himself from her to live in the desert on bitterness
and biscuits, he fared as sumptuously and lived far more
quietly than he had done at home. He was one of the
most placid of saints, and it is a positive libel upon him
for the French Admiralty to have given his name to one
of the most thundering steamers in the service. Its
broadsides far more nearly resemble the tongue of Gwin-
mary than the tones of Gomer.

In charming contrast with this truculent Gwinmary do
we meet and greet the gentle St. Elizabeth of Hungary.
The record of her good deeds would iill a volume, but out
of them I have only to select an exquisite table trait — to
register which is also to eulogize it. I do not allude to
her habitual temperance, to her dry bread and thimble-
fuU of wine, when she sat at meat with kings and queens,
her equals in birth ; nor to her small feasts with her two
maids, in the absence of her consort, Louis the Landgrave ;
but I allude— and listen, 0 ye Benedicts, with grateful

B B

370 TABLE TRAITS.

rapture — ^to the fact " that the kitchen she kept out of
her own private purse, not to be the least charge to her
husband." If celibate priests, who can hardly be supposed
capable of appreciating such a fact, canonized so rare a
lady, all married men who love banquets but dislike the
butchers' bills, will cry "Well done !" and recommend
their wives to read the instructive life of Elizabeth of
Hungary.

Who would expect to hear good of a Borgia? — St.
Francis Borgia was virtuous enough to save his family
name from entire infamy. Of no other man or woman of
his house could it be said that they gave up suppers, in
order to have more time for prayers. It was not Alexander
VI., the papal glory of his house and the shame of man-
kind, that would have been content with one meal a-day,
and that meal — a mess of leeks, or some pulse, with a piece
of bread, and a cup of water. At the same time, Francis
Borgia kept a table becoming a man of his rank, for the
gratification of his guests of high degree. There, while
they ate their venison, and quaffed their lachrymce Christi,
he nibbled his leeks, and sipped his water, " and conversed
facetiously with them, though at table his discourse
generally turned on piety." It was very like a Borgia to
make piety facetious, but if fiin in holiness be of the ingre-
dients necessary to the making of a saint, Sidney Smith
has as good a right as Borgia to be on the roll of the
beati. Our reverend "joker of jokes," indeed, would not
have smiled at the cook who pat wormwood instead of
mint into his broth; and I doubt if Peter Plimley ever
thought of doing what Francis Borgia did, — namely, chew-
ing his pills, and Swallowing physic slowly, as works of
meritorious mortification, bearing compound interest to
the profit of the practitioner. St. Wilfrid, who taught the
half-starved South Saxons to catch the fish that swam at
their feet, and thereby live, seems tome to have performed

THE DIET OF SAINTS. 371

a far more meritorious work than if he had passed his life
in gnawing leeks or masticating pills. Our native saint,
a good man at table, was often better employed than St.
Theresa, who is so eulogized because when serving at table,
or carrying the dinner from the kitchen, " she was often
seen suddenly absorbed in God, with the utensOs or instru-
ments of her business in her hands." The hungry and
expectant monks might have quoted against the rapt maid,
the assertion of the royal sage, that there is a time to eat,
as well as to fast and pray. But St. Theresa, with all
her good qualities, was as obstinate as the Polish saint
Hedwiga, who not only abstained from meat till abstinence
had nearly proved suicidal, but who refused to save her
life by eating any, until the Pope's legate had issued a very
peremptory precept to that effect. St. Peter of Alcantara
lost aU taste by his nearly total-abstinence principle, and
when some one gave him warm water with vinegar in it,
he thought it was his usual dinner of bean broth ! That
actively good saint, Charles Borromeo, was only wisely
moderate. " His austerities were discreet," is the phrase
of one of his biographers ; and his abstemiousness made his
health rather than marred it. This was so well known,
that they who dieted themselves in. order to recover or
preserve health, were said to have adopted the remedy of
Doctor Borromeo. St. Francis Xavier had something of
the discretion of Charles Borromeo, — and of the modesty
too, for he dressed his own dinners, even when he was apo-
stolio legate ; and that St. Clement of Alexandria belonged
to the same class of sagely temperate men, is proved by his
- maintaining that a little wine taken at evening, after the
labours of the day, was good for the body, and cheering for
the spirits. So the sainted Archbishop of York had no re-
pugnance to a slice of roast goose, for, as he truly remarked,
so good a thing was not designed especially for sinners.
And this recalls to my mind a comment, similar in spirit.

372 TABLE THAITS.

made by St. Thomas S, Beoket. A monk once saw him
eating the wing of a pheasant with much relish, and the
Pharisaical fellow thereon affected to be scandalized, saying
that lie thought Thomas was more of a mortified man.
" Thou art but a ninny," said the Archbishop ; " knowest
thou not that a man may be a glutton upon horse-beans;
while another may enjoy with refinement even the wing of
a pheasant, and have nature's aid" to digest what Heaven's
bounty gave ?"

This was good sense in the Archbishop, who perhaps had
been reading Epicurus, before he sat down to his repast.
However thk jnay be, it is certain that the philosopher in
question says something very like what Becket said to the
friar. "Is man," he asks, "made to disdain the gifts of
nature? Is he placed on earth only to gather bitter fruits ?
For whom then are the flowers that the gods strew at the feet
of mortals 1. . .We please Providence when we yield to the
divers inclinations which Providence suggests ; our duties
have reference to His laws; and our innocent desires are
born of His inspirations."

There are few things more common in the Lives of the
Saints, than to find them, after spare banquets of their own,
working penal miracles at the banquets of others. St. Eloy
was gifted with terrible power in this way, and endless are
the stories of revellers turned to stone by the might of his
magic right arm. Other saints had equal power in turning
the tables upon those who slighted them ; and I will take
this opportunity of narrating one instance, and will set my
Muse in slippers, to detail what occurred at

, THE BRIDAL AND BANQUET OF FERQUES,

Near the marble quarries of Ferques, adjacent to Land-
recthun le Nord, in the Boulonnais, may be seen a circular

THE DIET OF SAINTS. 373

range of stones, bearing a close resemblance in their shape,
though little in their magnitude, to those at Stonehenge ;
as also to the Devil's Needles, near Boroughbridge, and to
the solitary block on the common at Harrogate. Learned
people recognise the stones at Ferques by the appellation of
the Mallus, a Druidical name for an altar; but the tra-
ditionary folks, wiser in their generation, acknowledge no
other title for these remains of antiquity than Neuches, an
old provincial word, the corruption, I suppose, of Noces, and
signifying a bridal, including the banquet which followed
it. According to them, the stones at Ferques stand there
as a testimony of divine vengeance, inflicted on a fiddler
and other individuals belonging to a wedding party who
refused to kneel before the Host, as it was being borne along
by a priest to a dying brother. Eabelais says, that a well-
disposed and sensible man believes all that he is told ; (" Un
homme de bien, un homme de bon sens, croit toujours ce
qu'on lui dit, et ce qu'il trouve par 6orit ;") and argal, as the
logical grave-digger in Samlet has it, this story of a bridal
and banquet wiU be allowed to pass without question.

Though around the Weak district there is not a grove

That can boast of a shade, e'en in summer, for love,

Nor a walk by the side of a murmuring stream,

Where somnambulist lovers may talk as they dream ;

Nor a valley retir'd, nor sweet mossy dell.

Where young hearts that are aching, their anguish may tell ;

Nor a wood where a maiden deserted may sigh,

Or where youths, stripp'd of hope, may with decency die j —

Though all it can boast be a desolate heath,

Wtere 'twould puzzle young Cupid to find him a wreath, —

Yet e'en here the Idalian has furnish'd full work

Tor the hearts of the youths and the maidens of Ferques.

Of these there were two in the good days of old.
When the hard iron heel of the baron so bold
Ground those to the dust whom the mere chance of birth
Had deprived of the licence to lord it on earth.

,374

TABLE TRAITS.

The maid was as light' and as shy as the fawn.

Her eyes dark as night, and her brow like the dawn j

And her lips, twice as rich and as red as the rose.

Were more warm than the sky at a summer eve's close ;

While a music fell from them made only to bless ;

And her shape — nay ! her shape I must leave you to guess.

'Twould require the power pictorial of Barke,

To record how sublime was this beauty of Perques.

The swain was in manhood's first op'ning bloom.

In doublet, slash'd hose, martial bonnet, and plume ;

And he look'd, as he walk'd 'neath the moon's silver light.

Half hero, half mortal ;^half bourgeois, half knight.

If upward he gazed into heaven's soft skies.

He saw nothing there half so soft as her eyes ;

Or, at least, the young lover thus gallantly swore.

As he ran the long roll of his soft nonsense o'er.

And mincingly walk'd by the damosel's side, —

The latter all fondness, the former all pride ; — •

With one arm round the maiden, one hand on his dirk,

Irresistibly fine look'd this gallant of Ferques.

These walkings, these gazings, the terrible sighing.

With death, or at least earnest threat'nings of dying ;

These sinkings of spirit, these meltings away.

With the watchings by night and the dreamings by day,

What could such a mixture combustible bring.

But a state of incendiarism, like Swing?

When hearts are the haystack, and Love holds the torch,

'Tis odds but the hay-stack will soon get a scorch.

And what else could arise from those meetings at eve,

From those flaming assertions which maidens believe,

And those vows warmly breath'd ' 'twixt the gloam and the murk,'*

But a bridal and banquet to gladden all Ferques ?

Love's eddying current, I say it in sooth,
Ean, for this young couple, remarkably smooth ;
For the fathers paternally look'd on each child,
While the mothers maternally wept as they smiled;

" 'Twixt the gloaming and the murk.
When the kye comes hame." — Hoaa.

THE DIET OF SAINTS. 375

Fraternally too a whole bevy of brothers '

Loot'd on the alliance as fondly as mothers ;
And, if the young bride had possess'd but a sister,
These lines would have told how she tenderly kiss'd her.
Suffice it to say, that there never was seen,
In valley, dale, hamlet, on moorland or green.
An assembly so joyous as met at the kirk.
To view and to envy the lovers of Ferques.

For, the youthful, the aged, the ugly, the fair.
The idle, the busy, grave and gay, all were there.
Maids with prayers on their lips, for the weal of the bride.
Some who long'd for her looks, some for him by her side,
And, though last, yet most certain, by no means the least.
Stood his Hev'rence, who having been bid to the feast,
Look'd as jocund and joyous, and beaming with smiles.
As the fair Cytherean, when weaving her wiles.*
For where is the priest, be he Pagan, Hindoo,
Yellow BonzE from Japan, olive sage from Loo Choo,
A Franciscan Friar, an opium-drench'd Turk,
But loves a fair feast like this banquet at Ferques?

'Twould be tedious to tell, when the service was done,
How that of the gallants was warmly begun.
How, like the old suitors in Livy's old story.
By ' Cupiditate' (his words) ' et Amore,'t
The hearts of the damsels they ruthlessly task'd.
And finally gain'd twice as much as they ask'd.
Ah, sigh not to think that in Love's stricken field,
The maidens of Ferques were so ready to yield ;
For Livy declares that no maid can withstand
The wooer who comes with such arms in his hand.
They're pleasant to talk of, but 'neath them doth lurk
A peril not felt less at Eome than at Ferques.

The banquet was sped, and the floor being clear'd,
Terpsichore's summons distinctly was heard.
In the tuning Cremona that squeak'd forth its call,
Inviting all those light of foot to the ball.

* iiKoniieiZ-tis 'AippoS'iTri. Iliad, iii. 414.

t After "Cupiditate et Amore," Livy ungallantly adds, "quae
maxime ad muliebre ingenium efflcaces preces sunt."

376 TABLE TRAITS.

Lovely dance ! of thy charms how correct was the notion
Of her who the Poetry, called thee, of Motion !*
When Beauty her features in smiles deigns to grace.
What are those same smiles but the dance of the face ?
And when Dancing and Modesty happily meet.
What is Dancing just then but the smiles of the feet ?t
. I'd defy e'en a hermit the summons to shirk,
Ask'd a measure to tread by the beauties of Ferques.

When moonlight had risen to silver the scene.

The party adjoum'd from the hall to the green,

And their laughter was shaking the stars in the sky,

When by chance, on the heels of their mirth, there pass'd by

A Franciscan from Boulogne, Franciscanly shod,J

Who ask'd them to kneel at the sight of their God,

Whose presence mysterious he fully reveal'd.

But the fiddler, he swore, he'd be hang'd if he kneel'd.

And affirm'd — most irreverent charge 'gainst a' monk —

That the barefooted priest was decidedly drunk.

And the party applauded each quip and each quirk

That fell from this vile Paganini of Ferqnes.

But, oh, wonder ! those ribalds their scoffs had scarce utter'd,
When, at a low prayer by the Cordelier mutter'd,
Their laughter was heard to change into a moan.
As the priest transform''d each to a figure of stone.
There motionless still do the revellers stand,
Misshapen, as tum'd from their sculptor's rough hand ;
Save one, who when moonlight pours down from above.
May be seen from the spot vainly trying to move.
Some affirm 'tis the bridegroom aroused from his trance.
Some declare 'tis the bride gliding forth to the dance.
But 'tis only the fiddler endeavouring to jerk
His bow arm o'er the once magic fiddle of Ferques.

* Lady Morgan, I think, calls dancing, " the Poetry of Motion."
t " Qu'est-ce que la danse ? la sourire des jambes. Qu'est-ce que
la sourire 1 la danse du visage." — Silliophile Jacob,

X The theatre at Boulogne stands on the site of the old convent
garden belonging to the Cordeliers, the sea formerly flowed close to
the spot. When Henry VIII. took Boulogne, he converted the con-
vent into a marine arsenal.

THE SUPPORT OP SAINTS OP LATER
DAYS.

It may be seen from our last chapter, that the bill of
fare of those who dined in the desert was neither very long
nor very varied. It was otherwise with the better-fed,
but perhaps not better-taught gentlemen of the church of
later days. Thus, for instance, the Cur6 of Brequier kept
a very different table from that of the lean Amphitryons
of the desert. BriEat Savarin once called on the holy
man just as he had dismissed the soup and beef from the
table. These were replaced by a leg of mutton d, la royale,
a fat capon, and a splendid salad. The hour was scarcely
noon, and the cur6 had sat down to this saint's fare alone.
He was not selfish, however, and he invited his guest to
"break bread" with him, but the guest, a prince of "gas-
tronomers " in his way, declined, and the cur6, like Co-
riolanus, did it all alone ! He finished the " gigot" to the
ivory, the capon to the bones, and the salad to the
polished bottom of the bowl. A colossal cheese was then
placed before him, in which he made a breach of ninety
degrees, and having washed down all with a bottle of
wine, he, like the Irishman, thanked God "for that
snack,'' and betook himself to digestion and repose. "Le
pauvre homme !"

The nuns were in no ways behind the priests. Madame
d'Arestrel, lady Abbess of the nuns of the Visitation at
BeUey, (faustum nomen I) once told a secret to a visitor
who feared she was going to expound a chapter from the

378 TABLE TEAITS.

Prophets, " If you want a foretaste of Paradise in the
guise of good chocolate,'' said she, " be sure to make it
over-night, in an earthenware coffee-pot. Its standing
still for a night concentrates it, and gives it a velvety
taste, which is divine ! And Heaven cannot be angry with
us for this little luxury, for is not Heaven too divine ?"
How wide the distance between St. Paula, widow, and
Madame d'Arestrel, of the convent of the Visitation ! I
may add, that if the Visitandines made good chocolate,
the monks of the Feuillants, in Paris, were renowned for
their ratafie. But they too have superior authority for
good living. A dainty dish in Italy is commonly called a
" mouthful for a cardinal." — un boccone di cardinali.

The canons took the tone from the cardinals. When
the French canon EoUet became ill through excessive
drinking, his doctor interdicted all strong beverages, and
was not a little wroth, on his next visit, at finding the
dignitary in bed indeed, but at his bed-side a little table,
neatly laid out with bottles and glasses. The canon met
the threatened storm by gently remarking : — " Doctor,
when you forbade me drinking wine, you did not wish to
deprive me of the pleasure of looking at the bottle !" It
was such canons who were the best customers of the nuns
who distilled liqueurs, and of the Ursulines who manu-
factured the daintiest drops flavoured by the daintiest
essences ! But in the Archbishop of Paris himself, M. de
Belley, the clergy of France had example to which they
might appeal as authority for indulging in good cheer.
The archiepiscopal face was wreathed in smiles at the
sight of a good dinner. The prelate lived to be a veteran
among gastronomers, and was, in other respects, not an
unworthy archbishop.

But M. de Belley was at least a gentleman in his gas-
tronomic propensities. He was not, like a Russo-Greek
"Papa," a brandy-bibber. The Russo-Greek priests sanctify

THE SUPPORT OF SAINTS OF LATER DAYS. 379

drinking, in the minds of the people, by their evil ex-
ample. Monsieur L6verson Le Due, a French diplo-
matist in Eussia, tells us that he knows of one parish in
Muscovy where the people lock up their pastor every Sa-
turday night, in order that he may not be too muzzy for
mass on the Sunday. They occasionally find him very
drunk, nevertheless, when they have forgotten previously
to examine beneath his robe, under which the sinning sot
sometimes smuggles his quart of Cognac ! Sir George
Simpson crossed the Pacific in a Russian vessel. The
chaplain had been sent in her to sea, because he was al-
ways too drunk to officiate on land. He was kept sober
expressly for the hour of service on Sundays, but at other
times, he appears to have realized the verse in the old
song of Dibdin's, wherein it is said that

" 'Tother day as our chaplain was preaching,

Behind him I curiously slunk ;
And while he our duty was teaching,

As how we should never get drunk,
I show'd him the stuff, and he twigg'd it,
And it soon set his Eev'rence agog.

And he swigg'd, and Nick swigg'd.

And Ben swigg'd, and Dick swigg'd.

And we all of us swigg'd it, —
And we swore there was nothing like grog."

These examples, however, must be understood as occur-
ring mostly, if not exclusively, among the lower classes
of the clergy. There was a time when " the Vicar and
Moses" illustrated the sad doings of a similar class among
ourselves.

The Greek clergy in the South of Europe present us
with something no less curious of aspect. The haU-kitohen
of the Greek Patriarch, at Constantinople, is crowded with
inferior clergy, who take their meals there, and his All-
Holiness himself is served with pipes and sweetmeats by

380 TABLE TRAITS.

nothing less than gentlemen in Deacon's orders. Fancy
our Lord Primate ringing his bell for cheroots for two !
and having them brought in on a silver tray by the Curate
of St. Margaret's !

The Greek usages however are classical. The stranger
who dines with the Patriarch has, previous to falling to,
water poured over his hands as he holds them over a basin
with a perforated cover, and the napkins for drying them
are as delicate as rose-leaves. The guest reclines on a"
low couch, in ancient fashion, and his repast is placed on a
low stool at his side. The same custom exists in the con-
vents, but meat is seldom to be found there by a guest
who arrives unexpectedly. The monks themselves never
eat it at all. During half the year they have but one
meal a-day, and that consists of vegetables and bread. On
the other days of the year they are permitted the more
liberal, but sufficiently eremitic fare of cheese, eggs, fish,
wine, and milk ; but even on these gala days they are
never allowed more than two meals. Poor fellows ! the
majority of them pass their remarkably well-spent time,
when not at table, in tilling the ground or teaching won-
derful feats to very accomplished tom-cats !

A Greek monk's idea of an Englishman is that he is a
plum-pudding eater. And no wonder, since the English
are almost the exclusive purchasers of the currant-grapes
which are cultivated all along the northern shores of the
Peloponnesus, from Patra to Corinth. As the Chinese
think that we take their tea that we may live, so the Greek
monks conclude that we must buy their currants, or die !
At the convent of Vestizza, the good fathers trouble their
heads about nothing but the produce and price of their
great staple crop. If you ask how many brethren there
are in the convent, they will answer, " Three hundred ;
and what was the price of currants in England when you
left ?" Inquire if their books be in good order, and they

THE SUPPORT OP SAINTS OF LATER DAYS. 381

■will reply in the negative, adding an assurance that they
do their utmost to produce the best currants in the country.
And they -will give you permission to see their church, if
you will only promise to recommend their dwarf grapes to
the English merchants who are catering for plum-pudding
eaters at home. The grounds of other convents in the
peninsula are famous for their nuts, in the exportation of
which the brethren drive no inconsiderable trade.

These worthy people are said to be a trifle more en-
lightened and a degree less slothful than they were some
thirty years ago. There was ample room and verge
enough for improvement ; for at the period mentioned, the
Greek priests resisted the introduction of the potato into
the kitchen-garden, for the very satisfactory reason that
the pomme de terre was the very identical apple with
which Satan beguiled Eve out of Paradise! Yes, these
modern and orthodox saints very generally held that the
devil tempted Eve with an "ash-leaf kidney !"

If we cross over to Abyssinia, we shall find that the
priests and orthodox people there keep as poor tables, at
least on fast days, as the Greeks. Above eight months in
the year are assigned by the Abyssinian Cln-istians to
abstinence ! On these occasions an Abyssinian neither
eats nor drinks till long after noon. On festival days,
however, they make up for their moderation by imre-
straiued excess. Mr. Mansfield Perkyns, a traveller who
has given us the most recgnt account of life in Abyssinia,
tells us that, in honour of the festival of the Elevation of
the Cross, he gave an early breakfast to some dozen
guests, who were engaged to half-a-dozen other parties in
the course of the same joyous day, and that these guests
whetted their appetite for later meals by consuming at
breakfast a fine fat cow, two large sheep, and endless
gallons of mead ! On these occasions the mead is pretty
prolific of murder. The guests get dreadfully drunk in

383 TABLE TEAITS.

honour of the day, exactly as many highly civilized
Christian people in happy England do on the yearly
recurrence of " merry Christmas." Indeed, a feast of the
Elevation of the Cross without plenty of quarrelling and
bloodshed would be as dull as Donnybrook fair now is
without a row. But the Abyssinian Christian is as clever
in establishing a casus belli as a Donnybrook Eomanist.
If the latter sees the fair is likely to end without a fight,
he simply takes off his hat, draws a white line round it
with chalk, and declaring that he will break the head of
the first man who denies that such white line is silver
lace, he has speedily abundance of active work before him.
So a pious Abyssinian at an " Elevation" banquet, if he
finds things dull, merely remarks to his dearest friend and
next neighbour, " You are a good sort of man, but you
are not so handsome as I am!" and thereupon out fly the
knives of the parties and their respective friends, which
they proceed to clean by plunging them into each other's
ribs!

The people are brought up on a food likely to encourage
such pugnacious propensities. Mr. Perkyns, speaking of
the slaughtering of oxen for the kitchen, says : — " Almost
before the death-struggle is over, persons are ready to-
flay the carcase, and pieces of the raw, meat are cut ofij
and served up before this operation is completed. In
fact, as each part presents itself, it is cut off and eaten
while yet warm and quivering. In this state it is con-
sidered, and justly so, to be very superior in taste to what
it is when cold. Raw meat, if kept a little time, gets
tough; whereas, if oaten fresh and warm, it is far tenderer
than the most tender joint that has been hung a week iu
England. The taste is perhaps, in imagination, rather
disagreeable at first, but far otherwise when one gets
accustomed to it ; and I can readily believe that raw meat
would be preferred to cooked meat, by a man who from

THE SUFPOET OF SAINTS OF LATER DATS. 383

ohildhood had been accustomed to it." Suet fare, I may
observe, may not be out of place at the table of a patriarch
who lives in such a chmate as that of Abyssinia, but we
suspect that it would as much astonish a dinner party at
an episcopal palace in England, as Mr. Perkyns himself
would do were he to sit down to that dinner in his
ordinary Abyssinian fashion of — a bald head covered with
butter !

I have spoken in another chapter of a Brahmin who
stuffed himself with sweetmeats until he was nearly suf-
focated, and who exclaimed, on being recommended to
swallow a little water, that if he had had room for water he
would have swallowed more sweetmeats ! It is but justice,
however, to these saintly gentlemen to confess that they
can fast when there is anything to be gained by it.
Among the Mahrattas, when a fast man attempts to cheat
his creditors, a Brahmin is hired to sit the dhurna, and
this is the process — a process, by the way, which Monsieur
Dimanche tried on Don Juan, but unsuccessfully. The
Brahmin goes to the house or tent of the debtor, some-
times attended by numerous followers, and he announces
the dhurna, by which the debtor must not eat until he
has discharged his liabilities. The clerical bailiff sits at
his side and is bound to fast also, until the matter is
arranged. He who holds out longest wins the day, and if
the debtor be famished he will pay rather than die out-
right, for eat he dare not until his creditor be satisfied;
besides, if he were to starve the Brahmin to death, the
crime would be so heinous, that the debtor himself had
better have departed to the world of shadows. It
ensues that sitting dhurna is more successful in certain
districts than it would be in Belgravia, even though the
Archbishop of Canterbury himself were to take his seat
in the middle of the square, with a declaration that he
would neither move nor eat until every inhabitant in

384

TABLE TRAITS.

the parish had paid his Christmas bills. Poor man ! he
would have to sit as long as infeUx Theseus.

The saints of our puritan days were great favourers of
public fasts; but these fasts were less numerous after they
had consolidated their power, than before. " In the be-
ginning of the wars," says Foulis, in his " History of the
wicked Plots of the pretended Saints," " a public monthly
fast was appointed for the last Wednesday of every month,
but no sooner had they got the king upon the scaffold,
and the nation fully secured to the Kump interest, but
they thought it needless to abuse and gall the people with
a multitude of prayers and sermons, and so, by a, par-
ticular act of their worships (April 23, 1649), nulled the
proclamation for the observation of the former ; all which
verifieth the old verses : — '

" ' The devil was sick, the deril a monk would be.
The devil was well, the devil a monk was he." "

George Fox, the father of the Quakers, remarks in his
Journal, of the Puritans and their fasts: — ''Both in the
time of the Long Parliament, and of the Protector, so
called, and of the Committee of Safety, when they pro-
claimed fasts, they were commonly like Jezebels, and there
was some mischief to be done." Taylor, the Water-poet,
compares their fests to hidden feasts. "They were like the
holy maid," he says, " that enjoined herself to abstain four
days from any meat whatsoever; and being locked close
up in a room, she had nothing but her two books to feed
upon ; but the two books were two painted boxes, made
in the form of great Bibles, with clasps and bosses, the
inside not having one word of God in them ; but the one
was fiUed with sweetmeats, the other with wine; upon
which this devout votary did fast with zealous meditation,
eating up the contents of one book, and drinking as con-
tentedly the other." Dr. South, in his Sermons, is equally

THE SUPPORT OF SAINTS OP LATER DAYS. 385

severe. He observes that " their fasts usually lasted from
seven in. the morning till seven at night j the pulpit was
always the emptiest thing in the church ; and there never
was such a fast kept by them, but their hearers had cause
to begin a thanksgiving as soon as they had done." Butler,
in his Hudibras, hints that the work of fasting was to be
accounted to the faster, righteousness : —

" For 'tia not now who's stout and bold.
But who bears hunger best, and cold.
And he's approved the most deserving.
Who longest can hold out at starving."

The fasting of the civilians, however, was made to turn
to the benefit of the military gentlemen; and, in March,
1644, an ordinance was passed for the contribution of one
meal a week towards the charge of the army. There was
by far a more considerable liberality of spirit among some
of the clergy of the time of Louis XIV. than in the
Puritan authorities, inasmuch as they permitted others
to follow clerical example rather than precept. The
celebrated preacher. Father Feuillot, for instance, stood by
while " Monsieur " was enjoying an uncanonical collation
in the middle of Lent. His Highness held up a macaron,
and remarked, " This is not breaking fast, is it?" " Nay,"
said Feuillot, " you may eat a calf, if you will only act
like a Christian." I am afraid that we had not improved
at home, in the last century. On one of tho fasts of that
period, Walpole comments after his usual gay fashion.
" Between the French and the earthquakes," he says, in
1756, "you have no notion how good we are grown;
nobody makes a suit of clothes now but of sackcloth,
turned up with ashes. The fast was kept so devoutly,
that Dick Edgecumbe, finding 9, very lean hazard at
White's, said with a sigh, ' Lord ! how the times are de-
generated! Formerly, a fast woidd have brought every-
body hither; now it keeps everybody away!' A few
0 0

386 TABLE TRAITS. .

nigMs before, two men were walking up the Strand, one
said to t'other, 'Look how red the sky is! Well, thank
God, there is to be no masquerade 1'"

An ex-CapUohin has revealed some of the mysteries of
the house of which he was lately a member, and by this it
would appear that the Friars of the nineteenth century
are as little for slender diet as the fine gentlemen of the
eighteenth. "These Capuchins," he says, "of squalid
appearance, clothed in serge, with shaven heads and bare
feet, presenting the very type of hiunility and self-renun-
ciation, enjoy the luxuries of life with a prodigality un-
known to you. The poor friars have, with one exception,
no enjoyment of the things of this world, their only
worldly comfort is good cheer. The friars have three car-
nivals in the year, of two or three weeks' duration each.
These are the only periods at which they can recruit their
wasted strength, to enable them to resist the mortifications
of the rest of the year. During these few weeks they have
seven courses served at dinner, all substantial and choice
dishes, the most dainty morsels that can be provided. At
supper they have five coui-ses. By that hour, in spite of
their plentiful dinner, they have regained their appetites;
and their digestion is again most active. These courses
are as substantial as those of the dinner, and are despatched
with equal facility by these men of iron frame and tranquil
conscience. . . . Lent is arrived ! Well, you must fast,
you must mortify the flesh, but you must not die of inani-
tion. A good table is necessary, or you will sufier too
much, from contrast with the past few weeks. You need
double the supply that the secular orders do when they
fast, for your digestion is twice as active as theirs. Supper
is now a sadly scanty meal; it consists simply of fish,
bread, wine, and fruit. A miserable dish! not miserable
as to quantity or quality, but because it is the solitary
dish during the forty days of Lent, always excepting bread

THE SUPPORT OF SAINTS OF LATEE DATS. 387

and wine ad libittcm. Fortunately, the friars are wise and
provident; the slender supper is foreseen and provided
against at dinner, which consists of four dishes. The
hottle of good wine is valuable now, or they would be over-
come with weakness." Such is the testimony of a living
witness, who pledges his reputation for the truth of his
depositions.

I do not know that there is much that is exaggerated in
this, for from M. Saurin we hear that, in France^ well-to-
do priests mortify the flesh on maigre days by very pretty
eating. The bill of fare of these saintly men has been
known to include soup au coulis d'ecrevisse, salmon-trout,
an omelette an Than, that would have called a dead
gastronome to life; a salad, the very smell of which
seemed to give eternal youth; Semonal cheese, fruit, con-
fectionary, a light wine, and a cup of coffee. By such
self-denial is heaven gained by modern saints, in orders;
having fair fortunes, and looks with the same characteristic.

The Dominicans of Italy are in no degree behind their
brethren in France. The " late prior and visitor of the
order," who recently published his dealings with the
Inquisition, thus describes his ancient brethren. "They do
nothing," he says, "which they are bound to do by their
rules, if these are opposed to their inclinations. They
profess never to eat meat in the refectory, or room for
their common meals ; but there is another room near it,
which they call by another name, where they eat meat
constantly. On Good Friday, they are commanded by
their rules to eat bread and drink water. At the dinner
hour they aU go together into the refectory, to eat bread
and drink water, but having done so for the sake of
appearance, they go one after another into -another room,
where a good dinner is prepared for them all. I do not
blame them for enjoying it ; but I blame them for feign-
ing an abstinence which none of them intend to keep."
cc2

388 TABLE TRAITS.

These Dominicans, honest fellows ! are more hungry than
the gods of the old regime of whom it is said, —

" The Gods require the thighs
Of beeves for sacrifice ;
Which roasted, we the steam
Must sacrifice to them.
Who, though they do not eat.
Yet loTe the smell of meat."

But our poor friend the monk has witnesses in his
favour, as well as opposed to him. Some men call him a
living mummy swathed in faith. Another says he is
" a moral gladiator who wrestles with his passions, and
either stifles them or is devoured by them." A third,
describes him picturesquely as a sea-worthy vessel moored
iu a stagnant dock; and a fourth dismisses him con-
temptuously as a coward who won't fight. Even allowing
him to be all these, it does not follow that he is to be
deprived of his dinner. If he pays homage with his body
to the saints, he has earned what has been called the
mind's daily homage to the body. Dinner should be the
peculiar privilege of the monk, for it is as he is, in some
sense, "the open friend of poverty, the secret foe of
riches ;" and if dinner be "the breakfast of the poor and
the supper of the. rich," it is doubly due to the monk, who
can claim it by either title. And it must not be sup-
posed that they do not know how to enjoy pleasure like
sensible men. The AbbS of St. Sulpice, a Bernardine
monastery in the south of France, once invited a party of
merry and musical gentlemen from the neighbouring
town to come up to the monastery, and give the monks
a treat of good music on the fUe day of their patron
saint. A joyous company ascended at early dawn to
the monastery ; the most remarkable incident connected
with which is, that it is seated at the edge of a pine
forest, from which a hurricane swept down, in one night,

THE SUPPORT OF SAINTS OF LATEE DATS. 389

thirty-seven thousand trees. The visitors were received by
the cellarer, the abb€ not being yet risen, who conducted
them to the refectory, where they found awaiting them
a pat6 as big as a church; flanked on the north by a
quarter of cold veal ; on the south by a monster ham ; on
the east by a monumental pile of butter ; and on the west
by a bushel of artichokes ct la poivrade. All the ne-
cessary adjuncts were at hand j and among others, a
party of lay brethren ready to wait upon the visitors, and
very much astonished to find themselves out of bed at so
early an hour. An array of a hundred bottles of wine
bespoke the fathers' idea of good cheer ; and the cellarer,
having bidden them fall-to and welcome, deplored his
inability to join them, not having yet said mass, — and he
then took his leave to go and sing " matins."

The breakfast was done ample justice to ; after which
the visitors retired to take a short repose, subsequently
repairing to the church, where they performed a musical
service with the usual zeal and energy of amateurs, and
received modestly the showers of thanks that descended
upon them in return.

Monks and musicians then sat down to a dinner,
— ample, admirably cooked, excellently served, and
thoroughly enjoyed. The abundance that marked it may
be judged of by the fact, that at the second course there
were not less than fifteen dishes of roasted meats. The
dessert would have made the eyes of a queen sparkle ;
the liqueurs were choice, and the coffee redolent of Araby
the Blest. The enjoyment was long and perfect ; and by
the end of the repast, there was not man or monk present
who was not in charity with all the world. The " pious,
glorious, and immortal memory " of St. Bernard was not
forgotten among the toasts.

And then came vespers and more amateur music, —
probablv more vigorously performed than in the morning.

390 TABLE TRAITS.

And after vespers there was a division of pleasures : some
took to quiet games at cards, some chose a ramble in the
wood, and a few looked in again upon their friend the
cellarer. As night came on, all again drew together, but
the discreet abbot retired, willing to allow the brethren
full liberty on a festival which only came " once a year."
And to do the brothers justice, they began to make a
night of it as soon as the superior had disappeared. Jokes
and laughter and winged words flew about like vrildfire,
and the exercise got thereby sharpened the general appe-
tite for supper, — a repast 'which was discussed with a
vivacity as if the guests had been fasting up to that very
hour. Wit and wine, and wisdom and folly, were all
mingled together ; and the oldest of the fathers present,
with a flush on the cheek and a light in the eye, joined
chorus in table songs that were not sung to the tune of
N'unc dimittis. It was when the fun was flying most fast
and furious, that a voice exclaimed, " Brother cellarer,
where is your official dish?" "True!" answered that
reverend individual; "I am not cellarer for nothing;"
— and therewith he disappeared, but speedily returned
accompanied by three servitors, bearing piles of buttered
toast and bowls of what worldly men would have called
" punch." If the fun had waxed fast before, it grew fiery now,
and fervour for the patron saint glowed at the very fiercest
heat that punch could give it. In the midst of it all, the
hour of midnight was solemnly toUed out by the convent
bell, and the revellers, reverend and laic, swang merrily
to bed, satisfied with the day well spent in honour of
St. Bernard.

I have now spoken of the Dominicans, Capuchins, and
Bernardins. The Franciscans are a not less lively fra-
ternity. When the author of Eothen was at the Fran-
ciscan Monastery in Damascus, he asked one of the monks
to tell what places were best worth seeing, in reference to

THE SUPPOET OP SAINTS OP LATER DATS. 391

their association with St, Paul. " There is nothing in all
Damascus," said the good man, " half so 'well worth seeing
as our cellars ; " and forthwith he invited the stranger to
" go and admire the long range of liquid treasures that he
and his brethren had laid up for themselves upon earth.''
And, adds the author, "these I soon found were not as
the treasures of the miser, that lie in unprofitable disuse ;
for day by day, and hour by hour, the golden juice
ascended from the dark recesses of the cellar to the
uppermost brains of the friars, dear old feUows ! In the
midst of that solemn land, their Christian laughter rang
loudly and merrily. Their eyes kept flashing with joyous
bonfires, and their heavy woollen petticoats could no more
weigh down the springiness of their paces, than the filmy
gauze of a danseuse can cloy her bounding step."

Richard the First, as worthless a human being as ever
lived, bankrupt in every virtue save that of brute courage,
in making legacy of his vices, said he would bequeath glut-
tony to the priests. It was rather a compliment than
otherwise, for the inference was, that they lacked what he
was willing to surrender, when he could no longer enjoy
it. St. Augustin settled this vexed question as to what
was " good living," when he said, that " the great fast was
abstinence from vice." And in the true spirit of St.
Augustin's prose, rings the rich rhyme in Herrick's Noble
Numbers. " Is this," he says,

" Is this a fast, to keep
The larder leane
And cleane
From fat of veales and sheep ?

" Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?

392 TABLE TBAIIS.

" Is it to faste an houre ?
Or ragged to go,
Or show
A downcast look, and souret

" No ; 'tis a fast, to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat.
And meat,
TTnto the hungry soulc.

" It is to fast from strife,
From old debate.
And hate ;
To circumcise thy life.

" To show a heart grief-rent,
To starve thy sin,
Not bin :
And that's to keep thy Lent."

This is better philosophy than that given on a similar
subject by Montesquieu, who only recommends moderation
on the ground that it lengthens the term of enjoyment.
" I call moderation," says Pythagoras, " all that does not
engender pain ;'' and by this maxim of the Hellenized
Hindoo, Buddha Ghooros, the saints both of the desert and
the dining-room may, perhaps, in their several ways be
condemned.

In treating of the diet of more modem saints than those
of the days of martyrdom, I might have noticed the fact,
that in not very remote times, the parsonage-house at Lang-
dale, in Westmoreland, was licensed as an ale-house, the
living being too poor to allow the incumbent to make any-
thing like one upon it for himself. The ale-cask became
to the priest, what the fruit of the amrite tree was to the
Tibetians — ^the spring of life. This Westmoreland ale was
accounted a great strengthener, but so have many less
likely things. But enough of the " saints," good men and

THE SUPPORT OF SAINTS OP LATER DATS. 393

true the majority of them, earning their right to enjoy
the rich blessings of God, by fairer means, perhaps, than
many of their censnrers. I know no set of men so well
to contrast with the saints, as the " Caesars," and we have
yet time before supper to attend that august company
to table.

THE CiESARS AT TABLE.

It is a well-ascertaiued truth, that the Csesars at table
by no means generally conducted themselves as though
they were under the influence of a Roman Chesterfield,
as regarded their behaviour ; or a Roman Abemethy, as
regarded their moderation. Perhaps the great JuUus was
as much of a gentleman in both the above respects as any
of his imperial successors ; and even he could reform the
calendar with far more ease than he could reform himself.

When he was commanding in the Roman provinces,
beyond the Italian frontier, he kept two distinct tables.
At one sat his inferior o£S.€ers and the Greeks who were in
his service. The latter do not appear to have expressed
any discontent at not ranking with their Roman comrades.
At the other table sat none but Romans of high state, with
such native guests of quality as Caesar chose to invite to
meet them. He would watch his servants as sharply as he
did the enemy; and on one occasion, having observed that
his baker had put down to his guests a coarser bread
than that which he had served to Csesar, he sent the knave
to prison, there to learn better manners.

Csesar was as sober as Sir Charles Napier, who used to
sign himself " Governor of Scinde, because I was always a
sober man." Cato said of Julius, that he was the only
sober man who had ever attempted to subvert a government;
"a cutting sarcasm on all preceding patriots." As for
■'a.uces, the Duke of Wellington did not inspire FrancateUi,

THE C^SAES AT TABLE. 395

with more despair upon that head, than Csesar did his
cook. It was immaterial to him whether he had sauce to
his meat, or not ; and as to the quality, he never concerned
himself about it. He ate, thankfully perhaps, but thought-
lessly, certainly. His politeness was sometimes ridiculously
excessive, as when he ate up the ointment which had been
served instead of sauce, at a table where he was a guest,
and where he was courteously resolved to find everything
excellent. But although the great Julius was, according to
Cato, the only man who came sober to the subversion of his
country, he had some unsoberly habits about him. Thus,
when invited to a feast, he used to whet his appetite by
taking an emetic. This is attested by Cicero, who says, in
his letters to Atticus, (lib. siii. p. 52,) " Unctus est ; accu-
buit; EfXETiKijv agebat. Itaque edit et bibit dSeuiE et
jucunde." Suetonius agrees with Cato, that Csesar was
moderate with regard to wine : — " Vini parcissimum ne
quidem inimici negaverunt."

It is singular that a man who cared so little as he was
reported to have done for his stomach, should have cared
so much about the outside of his head. He could eat
pomatum, and yet be ashamed of the baldness which a
proper application of the unguent mightperhapshave cured.

Augustus Csesar, who visited prisoners, like Howard,
and cut off heads like an Algerine Dey, was moderate in
his cups, and endeavoured to make the people so. When
the latter once complained that wine was not only dear,
but scarce, he gravely proclaimed that his son-in-law
Agrippa had been looking to the aqueducts, and there was
no fear of any one dying of thirst.

There were seasons, however, when he could be more
than imperially extravagant. Witness the little supper he
gave to chosen guests, all of whom attended in the attire
of gods and goddesses ; and at which feast he presided in
the character of Apollo. The wits of the day, who were

396 TABLE TRAITS.

not invited, denounced this supper as an orgy at which
decent people would not have been present, even if asked.
Such stupendous iniquity was said there to have been en-
acted, that the real gods who had at first looked laugh-
ingly dovm from Olympus, withdrew one by one behind
their respective clouds. Even Jove himself, who sat gazing
longest, at length hurried away from the sight of men, who
were greater beasts than the privileged gods !

Like some of the extravagant and unclean banquets at
Versailles, this entertainment was given when there was a
famine in the city. On the following day, the people ex-
claimed in the streets, " It is the gods who have devoured
the food." The less fearful than these raised an altar to
Augustus Phoebus, and there paid mock worship to the
Emperor, under the title of Apollo the Tormentor.

It was not every one that deemed himself entitled, that
could find access to the table of Caesar Augustus. He was
extremely nice with regard to his associates, but he was
not so nice with respect to keeping his guests waiting for
his company. It was the maxim of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
that it was far less courteous on principle to allow hungry
guests to be kept from table out of respect to one man,
than it was to go to dinner without him. So also Au-
gustus thought that the many should not be made to wait
for one ; and, accordingly, he frequently did not appear at
table till the repast was half over; and sometimes departed
even then, after tasting of from three to half-a-dozen dishes,
before it was concluded.

He was dignified and condescending, enjoyed the jokes
of those who were bold enough to make them, and en-
couraged the reserved to be bold and jocund too. When
jests lacked from either of those parties, the master of the
Roman world then laughed, as he sipped his moderate
draught, at the quips and cranks of the hired jesters, whose
ofice it was to be cheerful when the guests grew dull.

THE C^SAES AT TABLE. 397

It has come down to us that he was a lover of brown
bread, small fish, green cheese and green figs. He was so
far intemperate that he would never let his appetite tarry
till meal-time. He ate when he was hungry, and perhaps
he was right. And yet it was but an unedifying sight to
see him passing in his chariot through the public streets,
returning the greetings of the people with one hand full of
bread, the other fuU of dates, and his almost sacred mouth
full of both. He was, in fact, wayward in his attentions
to his appetite, and woxdd occasionally fast till sunset if
the caprice took him. As to what is said of him that he
sometimes rose from the most sumptuous banquets, leav-
ing the viands untouched, — this was perhaps because the
edge of his appetite had been altogether destroyed by
brown bread and indigestible fruit.

In the day-time he quenched his thirst by eating of
bread dipped in water, by drinking water itself, or by
taking a slice of cucumber, lettuce, or unripe apple. His
moderation in drinking, when he did take up the goblet
at the evening repast, is much spoken of, but as we hear
more of the quantity than of the strength of what he
drank, it is difficult to decide upon this point. Suetonius
admiringly records that " he never exceeded a quart for
his share, or if he did, he was sure to throw it up again.''
This is but equivocal praise after all. He was a very great
man, no doubt, but, demi-god as he almost was, he spelt
after the " cacological" fashion of Lord Duberly ; and he
was more afraid of lying awake in the dark than any little
baron or squire in the nurseries of Belgravia and the ad-
jacent squares.

Tiberius, like his predecessor, treated his soldiers occa-
sionally like schoolboys, and when they displeased him,
he used to pat them on a regimen of barley. Tiberius
himself was not a profuse eater j he was rather moderate
than otherwise, and when gastronpmio extravagancy had

398 tABLE TEAITS.

reached a high pitch in Eome, he used to dine in puhEc,
like the kings of France, but, unlike them, upon cold
meat, as a reproof to the luxury of the times. He was
not, however, at all moderate in his cups, and the Roman
wits, who, like those of Paris, used to make merry epigrams
on the worst of their woes, punningly transformed his
names of Tiberius Claudius Nero, into Biberius Galdius
Mero. He had a reverence too for great draughts, and
he once raised a common fellow to the office of qusestor,
simply because he could drink off a measure of three
pints of wine without drawing breath. Most of the
Csesars must have been very unsatisfactory people to dine
with, but none more so than Tiberius, who loved discus-
sion, but if he found himself worsted in it, he invariably
ordered his opponent to retire — and commit suicide. A
hot bath and a vein or two opened soon disposed of an
inconvenient adversary. He used to puzzle his guests
with all sorts of strange questions, such as would puzzle
even the editor of Notes and Queries to answer. One of
these interrogatory puzzles was " the name of the song-
chanted by the Syrens." He would not speak the
fashionable Greek at table, but conversed in Latin ; and his
favourite feat at dessert was to run his forefinger through-
a hard green apple.

Caligula must have been a most . unpleasant person to
dine with. He entertained himself and his guests with
the sight of mfen tortured on the rack, and he got up
little private executions on those occasions to enliven the
scene. We read of Her Majesty's private concerts, and
how " Mrs. Anderson" presided at the piano. But the
Romans only heard of their Emperor's killing fun to
frighten his guests with, and how his Divinity's private
headsman, Niger Barbatus, performed, as usual, with his
well-known dexterity. His frolics were really of a frightful
character. It was after a banquet, when the capital jest

THE OiESAES AT TABLE. 399

of slaying had failed to make him as merry as usualj that
he rushed to the sacrificial altar, attired in the dress of
a victim-killer, that is, with a linen apron for his sole
costume. He seized the mallet as though he were about
to slay the appointed victim, but he turned suddenly
round on the resident official and butchered him instead.
And thereat, all who had witnessed the frolicsome deed
of their master, declared that " 'Fore Jove, 'twas a more
capital joke than the last !" His answer to the Consuls
who ventured to ask the cause of a sudden burst of
laughter in which he indulged at a crowded feast, is well
known ; " I laugh to think," said the amiable creature,
" that with one wave of my hand I can sweep all your
stupid heads off!" His method of loving was equally
characteristic. He would fling his terrible arm round the
fair neck he professed to admire, and express his delight
that he could cut it off when he pleased. There was the
brilliant Cesonia; "I cannot tell," said her imperial
lover at a feast, " why it is that I am so fond of that
girl. rU have her put on the rack for a quarter of an
hour, that she may be compelled to tell me the reason."
Blue Beard was the mildest of Quaker gentlemen com-
pared with this Caligula. A lady might as well have
been wooed by a boa constrictor.

Claudius Csesar has hardly had justice done him, as
regards his general character, but as my office is only to
show how he looked at table, I must be satisfied with
making the remark, and pass on to Caesar at meat. He
was no hero, undoubtedly, for he contemplated suicide,
for no better reason than having a pain in his stomach
after a repast. In this, however, he did not show less
courage than Zeno, the father of the Stoics, who having
bruised his finger by a fall, went home and hung himself.

He was largely hospitable, and sometimes entertained
six hundred guests at a time. He liked on these occasions

400 TABLE TRAITS.

to see Ills own children and those of the nobility seated, ac-
cording to the ancient fashion, at the lower end of the table.
It is to be hoped that they were out of ear-shot of what
was being said at the upper end. The jokes were sometimes
pleasant enough in their way. Thus a Eoman nobleman
having carried home with him a gold plate from the im-
perial table, was gently reminded of his theft when, on the
next occasion of dining with Claudius, he saw a reproach-
fully vulgar earthenware platter put down before him.

He was a man of infinite capacity, was the divine
Claudius, — ^that is, in gastronomic matters. He was ever
ready to devour, and always did so greedily. He has
been known to have suddenly jumped down from his seat
in the forum, allured by the smell of roast meat issuing
from the priest's table, in the adjacent temple of Mars.
And he would sit down with the reverend gentleman,
without waiting for an invitation. It must have surely
made the common-place spectators of the feat broadly
smile, just as if the twelve judges in Westminster Hall
were to leap from their benches, and racing across the
churchyard, pour into the first house in the cloisters where
the dinner bell was ringing loudest, and the prandial odour
was most savoury.

He ate like Baal, and drank like the beast in Fortu-
natus. He did both to repletion; but his attendants
would then tickle his throat with a feather, and so, by
exonerating his stomach, enable the imperial animal to eat
and drink again. He contemplated making a decree for
the benefit of guests at table, which was of a Kabelaisian
indelicacy, and which probably never presented itself to
the minds of any other men but Claudius and the Cur6 of
. Meudon.

Caligula had more afiection for his horse than for any-
thing human. He fed him on gilded oats, and the animal
was not a more beastly consul than many who were

THE O^SAES AT TABLE. 401

appointed to that high office. The emperor's dinner parties
must have presented a strange aspect, when the obsequious
senators stood, napkin in hemd, to wait upon the guests.
Fancy the peers of all politics, and the commons of every
shade of opinion, aU ranged behind the dinner-table at
Windsor Castle, in the professional uniform of dingy white
waistcoats and napless black coats, with their thumbs duly
doubled up in napkins, and all offering anxious service,
and " dindon k la daube " to ova: Sovereign Lady and her
guests, — fancy this, I say, and you will have the very
remotest idea possible of what the sight was like when the
senators changed the plates of Caesar. The personages
and their qualities are aU different, but the strangeness
of one spectacle could only be matched by that of the
other.

Nero (who found sport in sitting in an upper gallery at
the theatre, and flinging down nuts upon the bald head of
the prsetor below) was a very common-place individual at
table,, but he assembled guests about him who were ever ^
ready to consume his good things and applaud his good
sayings. Galba, his successor, was at once gouty and
gluttonous. He commenced eating at early dawn, and
darkness came over him still with appetite unsatiated.
He was as mean, however, as he was voracious. He did
once so far whip up his liberal spirit as to compel him-
self to give a dinner party ; but when he read the biU of
fare, he feirly burst into tears at the idea of the extrava-
gance and the expense. And yet the most costly dish he
could reprovingly point to, when his steward challenged
him, was a dish of boiled peas; — but perhaps they were
out of season, and Galba knew he should be asked for
them at least a guinea a quart! He would never have
been guilty of the prodigality of the Emperor Otho, who
daily wasted more bread and milk in making cosmetic
poidtices to lay on his own face than would have served to

D D

402 TABLE TEAITS.

keep body and soul together in half-a-dozen families. The
father of Vitellius more gallantly, when he wished to look
well at the centre of his table, was wont to besmear him-
self with a mixture made up of honey and his mistress's
saliva. He of course deemed it impossible to say which
was the sweeter of the two ingredients. This was even
worse than Galba, who was, however, essentially greedy;
the latter emperor could not eat with pleasure unless he
had more before him than he could digest. When his
stomach cried, " Hold, enough !" he used it as the Somer-
setshire lad did his. "Ah !" exclaimed the lad of Win-
canton, to certain monitions, — " ye may ake, but, 'vor I ha'
done, I'U make ye ake worser." Galba, when no longer
able to eat, lay and gazed at what he hoped to attack
more successfully after digestion had been accomplished.

Otho is remembered as being the complaisant gentle-
man who, when Nero had determined to murder his
mother, gave an exquisite little supper to both parties by
way of a pleasant preliminary. But Otho could at least
behave with outward decency, and of this Vitellius was
incapable. If he walked through the market-place, he
snatched the meat roasting at the cooks' stalls, and
greedily devoured it. He was not more reverent even in
the temple ; where, taking advantage of his vicinity to
the altar, he would sweep the latter of the barley that was
on it, consecrated to the god, and swallow the same, like
the sacrilegious heathen that he was. When about to fly
from the enemies who had overturned his throne, he
selected only his cook and his butler to be the companions
of his flight, and he took the former dear associate with
him, in his own covered chair. '

The chief table trait which I can call to mind as con-
nected with Vespasian is, that once a month he went
without dinner for a day. Such an observance, he said,
saved at once his health and his purse. He had so much

THE.C^SAES AT TABLE. 403

the less to pay to his purveyor ; and in consequence of
the fast, less also perhaps than if he had feasted, to his
physician. Both the sons of Vespasian, Titus and Domi-
tian, were mpdest at the banquet. The former had ceased
to he a free liver before he put on the imperial mantle ;
and as for Domitian, he could wash down his Mahan
apple with a draught of water, and then address himself
to sleep, as though he were a virtuous anchorite, and not
the most thirsty drinker of human blood that ever dis-
graced his race.

The five succeeding emperors, — Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian,
and the two Antonines, — Antoninus Pius, and Marcus
Aurelius, — governed the world during the eighty years
which are said, but questionably I think, to have'been
■the happiest years of the human race. There is little on
record as to how these potentates disported themselves at
table. Trajan, indeed, is known to have been a fearful
drinker ; but he loved a quiet, unceremonious dinner at
the house of a friend of modest degree, — for there he
tippled and talked to his heart's content, and willingly
forgot that he was Csesar. Hadrian is remembered as the
first Eoman emperor who wore a beard. He had warts
on his throat, and he did not like that these should be
seen by his guests at table. He once gave an entertain-
ment which cost upwards of two millions sterling, (when
Verus was made Caesar,) and he was sorry for it through
the remainder of his life. Many a man of far humbler
degree has committed the same kind of extravagance, and
experienced the same enduring repentance. Antoninus
kept the table of a country gentleman ; and Marcus
Aurelius dined alone, whUe Commodus, his son, played
at his knee. The board of that son resembled that of
ViteUius, and he fell from it one day, full of drugged wine
dd2

404

TABLE TEAITS.

administered to him by a concubine, and was strangled
as he lay beneath the table, drunk, and deserving of his
late.

The modest Pertinax was less happy as emperor than
when, as a simple official, he had charge of the provisions
of Eome. Didius Julianus was deep in the luxuries of
the table, and not nearly so deep in wisdom, when he
made a bid for the diadem, a few uneasy dinners in the
palace, an,d death. Septimius Severus, cared less for the
splendour of his table than the consolidation of his power,
but his banquets were choice things, nevertheless. His
sons, CaraoaUa and Geta, exemplified their fraternal una-
nimity by keeping different tables. They never sat down
together at the same board ; and there were two factions
in the court, something like that of George the Second,
at St. James's, and the son whom he hated, Frederick,
Prince of Wales, in Leicester Square. Macrinus was a
coarse feeder, and in everything he presented a re-
markable contrast with his successor Heliogabalus.

Heliogabalus lay on , couches stuffed with hare's down,
or partridge feathers, .^lius Verus reclined on cushions
of lily and rose-leaves. The first-named monster had his
funny moments ; and sometimes he would invite a certain
number of bald men, or of gouty men, or grey-headed
men, and he was particularly amused at a company of fat
men, so crowded together that they could find room only
to perspire. " One of his favourite diversions consisted
in filling a leathern table-couch with air instead of wool ;;
and while the guests were engaged in drinking, a tap,
concealed under the carpet, was opened, unknown to
them, — the couch sank, and the drinkers rolled peU-mell
under the sigma, to the great delight of the beardless
emperor." He was the first Boman emperor who wore
garments of pure, unmixed silk. He cared little for
poets or philosophers; but he gave liberal premiums to

THE CJBSAES AT TABLE. 405'

the inventors of new sauces, provided these pleased his
palate. If he disliked them, the inventor was condemned
to eat of nothing else, until he had discovered a new
condiment to win the imperial sanction. Heliogabalus
and George I. had this in common, that they both
liked fish a trifle stale. Thus, it is known that George
never cared for oysters tUl their shells began sponta-
neously to gape ; and the Oriental master of the Eoman
empire, who made a barber prsefect of the provisions,
would never eat sea-fish except at a great distance from
the sea, when they acquired the taint he loved. His
delight then was to distribute vast quantities of the rarest
sorts, brought at an immense expense, to the peasants of
the inla,nd country. The table of his successor, Alexander
Severus, was that of a gentleman. Its master was the
first Roman emperor to whom that title can be incon-
testably given ; and he loved to have around him ac-
complished guests of all varieties of opinion ; and this is
much more than can be said for that huge and hungry
Goth, Maximin. The Gordians brought back some of the
elegances of social life, which the unoleanness and severity
of Maximin had banished ; but at both the private and
public, the humble and the imperial, tables of Eome,
there must have been small ceremony and permanent
fear during the brief and troubled reigns of the foolish
men who purchased the right of dining in an imperial
mantle by being speedily enveloped in a bloody shroud.
Gallienus, alone, shines out upon the list as the very prince
of cooks ; and if CarSme had possessed half the enthu-
siasm which he so warmly affected, he would have named
his son and heir after this imperial inventor of rago4ts, —
who was also the accelerator of the ruin of Eome. All
the temperance of the Gothic Claudius could not restore
the remnant of ancient moderation, which had been de-
stroyed by that imperial maker of stews, the ever hungry

406 TABLE TEAITS.

and cruel Gallienus. Aurelian failed, like Claudius, but
the emperor Tacitus was more successful, and the de-
scendant of the great historian, even during his short
reign, roused the nobles to a sense of dignity, and
honoured science by inviting its disciples to his well-
ordered table.

A subsequent emperor, Carus, was perhaps one of the
most frugal, by habit and inclination, that ever wore the
imperial sword upon his thigh. Carus was at once mode-
rate and mirthful. He was seated on the grass, supping
on dry bread and grey peas, when the Persian ambassadors
came to him, suing for peace. "The matter just stands
thus, gentlemen,'' said the emperor, opening his mouth
widely, at the same time, to insert a shovel-like spoonful
of peas ; " if your master does not acknowledge the su-
periority of Rome, I will render Persia," — and here he
took off the cap which he wore to conceal his entire
baldness, — " I will render Persia as destitute of trees as
my head is of hair." Having said which, he resumed
swallowing his peas, and left the delegates to digest his
remark.

We are accustomed to consider Diocletian dining at
Salona, on the cabbages he had reared there, as an
emperor in reduced circumstances; but the truth is,
that the palace, gardens, and table of the ex-emperor were
all of a splendid character, and if his table was adorned by
the cabbages he had tended to a prize perfection, he was
far too wise an epicure to confine himself to that dish
alone.

The great Constantino appears under a double aspect,
and the least favourable one is offered to us in his
maturer years, when he surrendered himself more unre-
servedly than before to good living, for which he had
peculiar facilities at Byzantium, took to wearing false
hair, and became altogether a ridiculous old dandy and

THE CJLSAES AT TABLE. 407

hon vivant; the ridicule of whom, by his clever and
unscrupulous nephew, Julian, I am not at all surprised
at J for what is so eagerly seized upon by affectionate
nephews as the foibles of their indulgent uncles? Julian
was possessed just of that scampish sort of nepotism which
leads the modest young relative to eat an uncle's dinners
and deride the donor. Juhan's own table would have
gained the contempt of an editor of the Almanack des
Gourmands. Its frugality was frigidly parsimonious in
its chara cter. The philosophic emperor was a vegetarian,
and even of vegetables he ate sparingly, but swiftly,
leaping up, as it were, from dining thereon, to hurry to
his books or the public business, which he quitted re-
luctantly when the hour of supper summoned him even
to a more frugal meal than the dinner, which he despatched
with a celerity not at all admired by those who dined
with him. Nothing disgusted him so much as a gross
feeder, and probably nothing ever so greatly surprised
him as when, on taking possession of Constantinople, he
found one thousand cooks waiting to prepare the imperial
dinner ! A thousand cooks for a man who could dine on
a boiled turnip ! The Constantines had been accustomed
to dine upon birds from the most distant climates, fish
from the most remote seasj to have a dessert of fruits
out of their natural seasons, and to drink foreign wines
cooled in the summer snows of . the lofty hills. All this
was as useless to a man who needed but a crust and an
apple to calm his appetite, as were the golden basins and
the jewelled combs to an emperor like Julian, who seldom
washed even his face, and who not only never cleaned his
hair, but felt the lively liixury of leaving it undisturbed.
Julian in this respect was like Anthony Pasquin, who
was said to have died of a cold caught by washing his
fece. There was a famous Irish member of Parliament,
who, unlike Julian, was a glutton at dinner, but who was

408 TABLE TRAITS.

remarkable for his religious abstinence from all ablution.
His son was one day standing in the bow-window of
White's, when the sire was passing down the opposite side
of the street. I believe it was the noble lord who, when
Mr. Gunter in the hunting-field remarked that his horse
was too "hot" to ride comfortably, suggested to the
equestrian pastrycook that he should ice him. — I believe
it was the same noble lord who, on the first occasion

alluded to above, said to "Jack T ," "Jack! what does

make your father's hands so dirty?" "Well!" said the
old Colonel's afiectionate son, " I believe it arises from a
bad habit he has of putting them up to his face! " And
so of Julian we may say, that if his hands were innocent
of water, his famous beard was dirtier than his hands,
and that it was not pleasant to lie near the emperor at
dinner, unless guardedly ensconced to the leesasd of his
sacred and dirty person. w-v^^cW-uaA^

If Gratian, who was the first Roman emperor who
refused the pontifical robe, had lived but as became the
master of an imperial household, his sacrifice would have
had more merit; but the emperors of these times had
curious ideas as to duties. Thus the second Valentinian
delighted in giving splendid dinners, but at these enter-
tainments he always, himself, fasted; — a most discouraging
course for the guests, — ^but he thought there was merit in
the work. But Theodosius was at least as good a man,
and we know that he enjoyed the sensual and social
pleasures of the table without excess; and the same taste
was shown by that emperor Maximus, who is said to
have espoused Helena, the daughter of a wealthy Caer-
narvonshire lord, and to have renewed the popularity of
boiled leeks in Eome; and this was a better taste than
that of Honorius, who took to feeding poultry and eating
them, while Stilicho ruled the empire, and the eunuchs
lived on the very fat of the land. It was decidedly better

THE C^SABS AT TABLE, 409

too than the taste which led Valentinian the third, after
dining with Petronius Maximus and winning his money,
to carry off his wife ; a Tarquinian insult, which he paid
for, however, with his life. Avitus could indulge in such
freaks, however, with impunity; and he not only seduced
Roman matrons, but invited their husbands to dinner,
where the slaves smiled at the imperial raillery directed
against them while the courses were changing! His
successor, Majorianus, was a man of another stamp, and
I woidd fain believe the pleasant anecdote which says of
him that he went to Carthage in the disguise of his own
ambassador, and dined with Genseric the king, who was
especially chafed when he afterwards discovered that he
had entertained, without knowing it, the Emperor of
the Romans. Anthemius, if he be famous for little else,
is at least famous for the superb wedding-dinner with
which he celebrated the nuptials of his daughter with
Count Ricimer, a wicked son-in-law who devoured the
dinners of his "beau pere," and robbed him of his
estate; — ^no uncommon course for sons-in-law to take.
The count placed on the uneasy and vacant throne the
epicurean Glycorius, who, having murdered Julius Nepos
after a banquet, was made Archbishop of Milan, as one of
the recompenses of the act. And then the empire fell into
the delicate hands of the weak and beautiful Augustulus,
who could not find wherewith in the treasury to maintain
a decent table, and who was glad to accept clemency and
an annuity from Odoacer, whereby he was enabled, upon
six thousand pieces of gold annually, to keep such state
in the Castle of Lucullus in Campania, that the surround-
ing gentry visited him in shoals, and ate his dinners by
way of proof that they looked upon him as a man of the
highest respectability.

And this was the end of the " twelve vultures," seen by

410 TABLE TEAITS.

Eomulus, foreshadowing the " twelve centuries," more or
less, that were to mark the duration of the dominion which
he founded; a dominion commenced by a hungry adven-
turer, and which crumbled to nothing in the hand of that
Augustulus, who was but too rejoiced to take in exchange
for it, the bed, board, and six thousand a-year with which
• he set up as a hospitable country gentleman, in his rustic
villa, on the slopes' of Campania.

As for the Ceesars of the Eastern Empire, they were
rather Oriental despots than either Greek or Roman
monarchs, just as the Byzantines were ever more Asiatics
than Europeans. The sovereigns, for the most part, ate
at golden tables, and were served like gods. Some of
them, like Romanus, were, respectable cooks, and more
than one was discussing the merits of a new sauce or
dish, when the Saracens were knocking, at the frontier
gates of the empire. The sort of merry humour indulged
in by others may be judged of by a single trait of Michael
the Drunkard. This amiable sovereign started up, one
day, from table, ere the imperial dinner was well over,
and assuming an episcopal dress, he descended into the
streets followed by his courtiers. The latter bore the
vinegar and mustard that had been on the monarch's side-
board, and mixing the condiments together, they stopped
aU passers-by, compelled them to kneel, and with horrible
profanity and mock psalmody, administered the Sacrament
with the above-named horribly compounded elements.
Such was one of the Eastern Caesars at and after dinner,
and the easy Byzantines were not much scandalized thereat.
Indeed, they troubled themselves very little about the
affairs of the government, or the doings of the governors;
and it would never have entered the head of a Byzantine

THE C^SAES AT TABLE. 411

subject to say of his son what the American citizen once
remarked, touching his heir, to Mrs. Trollope, namely,
that he would much sooner that his son got drunk three
times a-week than that he shordd refrain from meddling
with the politics of his times.

From the palaces of the Caesars, let us now pass into
the mansions of miscellaneous majesties, and see how the
first gentlemen of their respective days comported them-
selves "at meat." Yes, at Tneat; for "la viande du Roi"
was the consecrated phrase, and guards presented arms,
and courtiers bowed low, as the king's "meat" was
solemnly carried to the royal table, or borne to the bed-
side, where it remained under the name of an en cos,
"in case" the august appetite should be lively before
morning.

THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT.

Theeb was an old custom at Pisa, the origin of which
may be traced to the anti-judaical days of persecution. On
a certain day in the year, I believe, Good Friday or Easter
Sunday, every Jew discovered in the streets, was hunted
down by the populace. When the game was caught he
was weighed, and compelled to ransom himself by paying
his own weight of sweetmeats. It was an advantage, then,
at Pisa for a Jew to be of a Cassius cast. It was different
in other days, and climes, with regard to kings. Nations
used to weigh their monarchs yearly, and if the register
showed an increase of dignified obesity, great was the
popular rejoicing thereat. If, on the other hand, the too,
too solid flesh of the potentate had jdelded to irresistible
influences, and the, father of his people exhibited a falling
away in his material greatness, the body of loyal subjects
went into mourning and tears, and deplored the evil days
on which they had fallen, when monarchs could not be kept
up to the old monarchical standard of corpulency. Kings
who cared for the affections of their people were, accord-
ingly, disinterestedly solicitous to support their corporeal
requirements ; for to be fat was to be virtuous, and he was
really the greatest of monarchs who required the greatest
circumference of belt. You must understand, however,
that if kings encouraged their own increase, it was disloyal
in the people to imitate them. The monarchs of old, in
this respect, were hke our Henry VIII, who never stinted

THBIE MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 413

his o\ra appetite, but who imprisoned the Earl of Surrey
in Windsor Castle, for daring to touch a lamb chop on a
Friday.

The most gigantic of royal feeders placed on the record
of ancient history, was Thys, king of Paphlagonia, at
whose table " the entire animal " was served by hundreds.
When he fell into the power of Persia he exhibited more
appetite than grief, and banqueted in such a style that
the courtiers spoke of it wonderingly to their king Arta-
xerxes. He repUed significantly, "Thys is making the
most of the shortness of Ufe."

The kings of Persia were but sorry hosts to dine with.
Their table was in a Uttle recess divided from the outward
hall by a low curtain. The king sat alone in his alcove,
and could behold, without being seen, the guests in the
outer hall. The latter were of the highest rank; mere
younger brothers, civilians, and undignified people of that
sort, sat at meat in the galleries. It was only on two or
three high days that the king sat at the same table with
his subjects. The royalty of old Persia had once a repu-
tation for temperance, but to be " royally drunk '' was no
imoommon characteristic of his majesty and the princes
of the blood. He generally made drinking parties of a
dozen favourites. These sat on the ground, while the
king lay on a gold couch, and the conclave drank like
dragoons, and got infinitely more tipsy.

In the banquets of state there were a few singularities.
Horses and ostriches appear in the biU of fare, among a
hundred other delicacies; but no guest did more than just
taste what was placed before him; and what he did not
eat, he carried home with him. A dainty bit from the
king's table was a present meet for lover to make to his
lady; and a wooer who brought a rump steak of horse-
flesh in his hand, straight from the regal banquet, was
scarcely a man to be refused anything.

414 TABLE TEAITS.

There was something of grandeur in the banquets of
Cleopatra, when Antony dined with her. The service was
in gold, and she made a present of it to her visitor. On
the following day there was a new service, and it was again
presented to " the favoured guest." Antony himself ex-
hibited infinitely less taste at Athens. He erected in the
public theatre a scene representing the grotto of Bacchus,
dressed himself like the god, and, with a party of followers
as worthless as himself, sat down at day-break, in presence
of an admiring and crowded " house," and got dreadfully
drunk before breakfast time. And this knave aspired to
rule in Eome !

Alexander, and, as may be seen in another page, Au-
gustus, was given to this sort of theological masquerading.
The first-named accepted banquets from his great officers ;
and these exhibited their taste by having aU the fruit on
the table covered thickly with gold, which, when the fruit
itself was presented to the guests, was torn off and flung
on the ground, for the benefit of the servants. The father
of Alexander had shown in his time a better example of
economy. He had but one gold cup, and to prevent that
from being stolen, he placed it every night under his pil-
low, and went to sleep upon it. The mad Antiochus, of
Syria, was of another kidney, for whenever he heard of a
drinking bout in his own city, he used to order his chariot,
and taking with him a measure of wine and a goblet, he .
would rush down to the place and take a seat uninvited.
He was such indifierent company, however, that the guests
could not be prevailed upon to tarry, and even the ofier of
his golden goblet was unable to bribe a man to sit and get
drunk with a witless king.

But the most extraordinary meal I have ever heard of
was that made by Cambes, king of Lydia. He was a
great eater, a great drinker, and of insatiable voracity. It
ia told of him that he one night cut up his wife and de-

THEIE MAJESTIES AT MEAT. , 415

voured her, and that he awoke the next morning, with one
of her hands sticking in his mouth. But I have little
doubt that something of an allegory lies under this royal
story. Cambes probably had had an argument with his
consort, — a lady of the sort spoken of by Dr. Young as
one who

Shakes the curtain with her good advice.

His logic " cut up " her assertions, and thereon he ad-
dressed himself to sleep; but he no sooner awoke in the
morning than her hand was upon his mouth, to prevent
his speaking while she reiterated her follies of the previous
night. Poor Cambes ! he cut his throat in order to escape
from a too loquacious consort, of whom he is accused of
being the murderer by the libelling Xanthus.

I may add to the record of these exemplary persons, the
name of Dionysius of Heraclea, who, through good living,
fell into such a condition of obesity and somnolency that
he could only be made conscious by running fine gold
needles into his flesh. What a droll tiling it must have
been for his morning visitors who found the huge mass fast
asleep at table ! Shaking hands with him, or any other
equivalent ceremony, would have been useless. They ac-
cordingly took a gold needle from his girdle and tenderly
run it into his fat. When it reached a vital point, the un-
easy monarch snorted and opened one eye ; and this being
taken as an acknowledgment of their presence, he straight-
way went to sleep again. Ptolemy, the seventh king of
Egypt, was in nearly as deplorable a condition, and Magas
of Gyrene was perhaps even worse. The Ephori, it will be
remembered, had a horror of the Lacedaemonians getting
fat, and to prevent this undesirable consummation, the
youth were obliged to present themselves undraped to the
magistrates. Woe to the ofienders with prominent sto-
machs, for they had them punched till the owners hardly

416 . ■ TABLE TEAITS.

knew whether they stood on their head or their heels, and
could not digest a dinner for a month afterwards.

They were beaten almost as badly as the unlucky official
who went, in Parthia, by the name of the king's friend. It
was the duty of this minister to seat himself on the ground
at the foot of the lofty couch on which the king lay, and
from which the sovereign flung refuse bits to his "friend."
If the latter ate too voraciously, his meat was snatched
from him, and he was beaten with rods till he had hardly
strength left to thank his majesty for the entertainment.
Of course, if he ate too slowly, he was subject to similar
castigation. The moral, perhaps, is, that "fast" or "slow,"
it is safer not to be "friends" with the king — of the
Parthians.

But let us turn from the ancient records of how the
monarchs of old deported themselves at their solemn
boards, and contemplate a few brief table traits in con-
nexion with, the sovereigns of more modern times.

Clovis was a Christian king, but his behaviour at dinner
was not always so exemplary, as might have been desired.
But the Chesterfields of his time were not exacting, and
they probably thought Clovis a gentleman when, on Bishop
(St. Gerome) taking leave of him after dinner, the monarch
pulled out a hair and placed it in the bishop's palm; the
civil ceremony was imitated by the courtiers, and the pre-
late left the rude palace with more hairs on his hand than
he had on his head.

But dismissing the idea of running regularly through
the " Tables of the Sovereigns of Europe," and elsewhere,
I will simply relate such incidents as are exemplary of
royal table life, without pausing to be very nice with re-
gard to chronological order. Thus it occurs to me that
Russia, in modem times, exhibits as much barbarism as
the court of Clovis, .where Christianity and civilization
were, as yet, hardly known.

THEIE MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 417

When Peter the Great and his consort dined together,
they were waited on by a page and the empress's favourite
chambermaid. Even at larger dinners, he bore uneasily
the presence aid service of what he called listening
lacqueys. His taste was not an imperial one. He loved,
and most frequently ordered, for his own especial enjoy-
ment, a soup with four cabbages in it; gruel; pig, with sour
cream for sauce ; cold roast meat, with pickled cucumbers or
salad; lemons and lampreys; salt meat, ham, and Limburgh
cheese. Previously to addressing himself to the "con-
summation" of this supply, he took a glass of aniseed
water. At his repast he quaffed quass, a sort of beer,
which would have disgusted an Egyptian ; and he finished
with Hungarian or French wine. All this was the repast
of a man who seemed, like the nation of which he was the
head, in a transition state, between barbarism and civiliza-
tion ; beginning dinner with cabbage water, and closing
the banquet with goblets of Burgundy.

Peter and his consort had stranger tastes than these.
This illustrious pair once arrived at Stuthof, in Germany,
where they claimed not only the hospitality of the table,
but a refuge for the night. The owner of the country
house at which they sought to be guests was a Herr
Schoppenhauer, who readily agreed to give up to them a
small bed-room, the selection of which had been made by
the emperor himself. It was a room without stove or
fire-place, had a brick floor, the walls were bare ; and the
season being that of rigorous winter, a difficulty arose as
to warming this chamber. The host soon solved the diffi-
culty. Several casks of brandy were emptied on the floor,
the furniture being first removed, and the spirit was then
set fire to. The czar screamed with dehght as he saw the
sea of flames, and smelt the odour of the Cognac. The
fire was no sooner extinguished than the bed was replaced,
and Peter and Catherine straightway betook themselves to

B E

418 TABLE TEAITS.

their repose, and not only slept profoundly all night in this
gloomy bower, amid the fumes and steam of burnt brandy,
but rose in the morning thoroughly refreshed and delighted
with their couch, and the delicate vapours which had
curtained their repose.

The emperor was pleased, because when an emergency
had presented itself, provision to meet it was there at
hand. Napoleon loved to be so served at his tables when
in the field. He was irregular in the hours of his repasts,
and he ate rapidly and not over delicately. The absolute
will which he applied to most things, was exercised also
in matters appertaining to the appetite. As soon as a
sensation of hunger was experienced, it must be appeased;
and his table service was so arranged that, in any place
and at any hour, he had but to give expression to his will,
and the slaves of his word promptly set before him roast
fowls, cutlets, and smoking coffee. He dined off mutton
before risking the battle at Leipsic ; and it is said that he
lost the day because he was suffering so severely from
indigestion, that he was unable to arrange, with sufficient
coolness, the mental calculations which he was accustomed
to make as helps to victory.

As Napoleon, the genius of war, was served in the field,
Louis XV., "the incarnation of selfishness and vice, was
served in his mistress's bower. That bower, built at
Choisy for Pompadour, cost millions ; but it was one of
the wonders of the world. For the royal entertainments,
there were invented those little tables, called " servants "
or " waiters ; " they were mechanical contrivances, that
immortalized the artist Loriot. At Choisy, every guest
had one of these tables to himself No servant stood by
to listen, rather than lend aid. Whatever the guest
desired to have, he had but to write his wish on paper,
and touch a spring, when the table sunk through the
flooring at his feet, and speedily re-appeared, laden with

THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 419

fruits, witli pastry, or with wine, according to the order
given. Nothing had been seen hke this enchantment in
France before ; and nothing like it, it is hoped, will ever
be seen there or elsewhere again. The guests thought
themselves little gods, and were not a jot more reasonable
than Augustus and his companions, who sat down to
dinner attired as deities. When kings ape the majesty of
gods, it is time for the people to shake the majesty of
kings.

Perhaps Louis XV. never looked so little like a king as
when he dined or supped in public, — a peculiar manifesta-
tion of his kingly character. The Parisians and their
wives used to hurry down to Versailles on a Sunday, to
behold the feeding of the beast which it cost them so
much to keep. On these occasions he always had boiled
eggs before him. He was uncommonly dexterous in
decapitating the shell by a single blow from his fork ; and
this feat he performed weekly at his own table, for the
sake of the admiration which it excited in the Cockney
beholders. But an egg broken by the king, or Damiens
broken alive upon the wheel, and torn asunder by wild
horses, — each was a sight gazed upon, even by the youthful
fair, with a sort of admiration for the executioner !

The glory of the epicureanism of Louis XV. was his
"magic table," and the select worthless people especially
invited to dine with him thereat. In 1 780 the Countess
of Oberkirch saw this table, eVen then a relic and wreck
of the past. She and a gay party of great people, who
yet hoped that God had created the world only for the
comfort of those whom He had honoured by allowing
them to be born " noble," paid a visit " to the apartments
of the late king" in the Tuileries. There, among other
things, she saw the celebrated magic table, the springs of
which, she says, "had become rusty from disuse." The
good lady, who had not the slightest intention in the
E E 2

420 TABLE TEAITS.

world to be satiricalj thus describes the wondrous article,
at the making of which Pompadour had presided : — " It:
was placed in the centre of a room, where none were
allowed to enter but the invited guests of Louis XV. It
would accommodate thirty persons. In the centre was a
cylinder of gilt copper, which could be pressed down by
springs, and would return with its top, which was sur-
rounded by a band, covered with dishes. Around were
placed four dumb waiters, on which would be found every-
thing that was necessary." In 1789 the Countess says, —
" This table no longer exists, having been long since de-
stroyed, with everything that could recall the last sad years
of a monarch, who would have been good if he had not
been perverted by evil counsels."

After all, the gastronomic greatness of Louis lXV. was
small compared with that of his predecessor, Louis XIV.
The "state" of the latter was, in all things, more "cum-
bersome." To be helpless was to be dignified ; and to do
nothing for himself, and to think of nothing but himself,
was the sole life-business of this very illustrious king. A
dozen men dressed him ; there was one for every limb that
had to be covered. Poor wretch ! His breakfast was as
lumbering a matter as his toilette; and he tasted nothing
tiU it had passed through the hands of half-a-dozen dukes.
It took even three noblemen, ending with a prince of the
blood, to present him a napkin with which to wipe
his lips, before he addressed himself to the more serious
business of the day.

Louis XIV. could not be properly got to the dinner-table,
entertained there, and removed, without a still more fussy
world of ceremony, and that of a very Chinese or Ko Tou
character. The ushers solemnly summoned the guard
when the cloth was to be laid, and a detachment of men
under arms were at once spectators and guardians at the'
dressing of the table. They stood by, exceedingly edified,

THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 421

no doubt, while the appointed officers touched the royal
napkin, spoon, plate, knife, fork, and tooth-picks, with a
piece of bread, which they subsequently swallowed. This
was the "trial" against poisoning. The dishes in the kitchen
were tried in the same way, and were then carried to table
escorted by a file of men with drawn swords. As the dishes
were placed on the table, the loyal officials bowed as though
some saintly relics were on the platter !

If there was ceremony at the coming in of the meat, how
much more was there at the coming in of him who was
about to eat it ! Unhappy wretch ! what splendid misery
enveloped his mutton-chop ! He was looked upon as very
august, but decidedly helpless. Did he wish to wipe his
fingers; three dukes and a prince only could present him
with a damp napkin ; but a dry one might be offered him
at dinner, without insult, by a simple valet. Philosophical
distinction ! Changing his plate required as much attendant
ceremony as would go to the whole crowning of a modern
constitutional king ; and when he asked for drink, there
was thunder in heaven, or something like it. The cup-
bearer solemnly shouted the king's desire to the buffet ; and
the buffeteers presented goblets and flasks to the cup-bearer,
who carried them to the thirsty but necessarily patient
monarch ; and, when he finally received the draught into his
extended throat, aU loyal men present seemed the better
for the sight.

But Louis XIV. was so well-used to this, and much more
ceremony than I have space to detail, that it interfered in
nowise with the comfortable indulgence of his appetite.
He was a very gifted eater. The rough old Duchess of
Orleans declares in her Memoirs, that she " often saw him
eat four platesful of different soups, a whole pheasant, a
partridge, a platefull of salad, mutton hashed with garliok,
two good-sized slices of ham, a dish of pastry, and after-
wards fruit and sweetmeats !" At the end of such a repast

422 TABLE TRAITS.

as this, this "most Christian" king (very much so, indeed!)
must have been in something of the condition of the young
gentleman who went out to dine, and who, after taking
enough for three boys of his size, and being invited to take
more, answered that he thought he could, if they would
allow him to stand !

The Duchess of Orleans, however, is by no means
astonished at the Baal-hke ability of the king. Of her own
performances in that way she says, "I am not good at
lying in bed; as soon as I awake, I must get up. I seldom
breakfast, and then only on bread and butter. I take
neither chocolate, nor coffee, nor tea, not being able to
endure those foreign drugs. I am German in all my habits,
and like nothing in eating or drinking which is not con-
formable to our old customs. I eat no soup but such as I
can take with milk, wine, or beer. I cannot bear broth ;
whenever I eat anything of which it forms a part, I fall
sick instantly, my body swells, and I am tormented with
colics. When I take broth alone, I am compelled to vomit
even to blood, and nothing can restore the tone of my
stomach but — ham and sausages!" Poor lady ! she reminds
me of the converted cannibal Carib, who was once sick, and
who being asked by a missionary what he could eat, an-
swered sentimentally, that he thought he could pick a bone
or two of a very delicate hand of a young child !

At a later period even than that of the Duchess of
Orleans above-mentioned, the German taste could hardly
be said to have improved. For instances of this, I need
only refer to the Memoirs of the Margravine of Bareuth.
This lady was the daughter of that Frederic William of
Prussia, whose portrait is graphically drawn also by his own
son, and with additional light and shade by Voltaire. The
Princess Frederica subsequently married the Prince of
Bareuth — a mesalliance which did not displease her easy
parents; — ^they were not as proudly vexed at it as Isaac and

THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 423

Eachel were at the marriage of their soa Esau with the
daughter of Beeri the Hittite, which certainly sounds as it
Esau's father-in-law had been a pugiHstic publican ; — the
Princess Frederica, I say, paints a portrait of her father
in very broad style. He used to compel her and his other
children to come to his room every morning at nine o'clock,
whence they were never allowed to depart till nine in the
evening, " pour quelque raison que ce fut." The time was
spent by the affectionate sovereign in swearing at them,
and he added injury to insult by half-famishing them.
He begrudged them even a wretched soup made of bare
bones and salt. Occasionally, they were kept fasting the
whole day ; or, if he graciously allowed them a meal at his
own table, the royal beast would spit into the dishes from
which he had helped himself, in order to prevent their
touching them. At other times he forced them to swallow
compositions of the most disgusting description — " ce qui
nous obligeait quelquefois de rendre, en sa presence, tout
ce que nous avions dans le corps!" He would then throw
the plates at their heads ; and, as his children rushed by
him to escape his fury, the paternal brute, whom it is too
much flattery to himself, and too much injustice to the
brute creation so to name, would strike fiercely at them
with his crutch, and was eminently disappointed when he
failed to crack their little, hard, royal, but very dirty skulls.
It is known that this madman would have slain his own
son, "the rascal Fritz," as he, "the great Frederic,"
as the world afterwards was used to call him; and
little doubt can exist that the great Frederic owed most
of his great vices, and none of his great qualities, to the
education which he received at the knees of his infamous
sire.

The history of the German courts abounds in traits
connected with the table, but I am compelled to go little
beyond the announcement of such a fact. One or two

424 TABLE TEAITS.

more, however, I may be permitted to notice before finally
leaving this section of my multifaced subject.

Ernest the "Iron'' was, perhaps, the least luxurious of
his race. He married Cymburga of Poland, the lady who
brought into the Austrian family the thick lips, which to
this day form a characteristic feature in the imperial
physiognomy. Cymburga cracked her nuts with her
fingers ; and when she trained her fruit-trees, she hammered
the nails into the wall with her clenched knuckles ! Their
table was at once copious and simple. Their son Frederic
had less strength both of body and judgment. At near
fourscore years of age he suffered amputation of the leg,
in order to get rid of a cancerous affection. He was " doing
well" after the operation, when he resolved upon dining
on melons. He was told that such a diet would be fatal
to him, as it had already been to one Austrian archduke
of his house. Frederic reflected that he would probably
die at all events, and that he had already reigned longer
than any emperor since the days of Augustus, namely,
fifty-three years. " I will have melons," said he, " betide
what may!" He ate unsparingly, and death followed close
upon the banquet.

Frederic would neither drink wine himself, nor allow
his consort to do so, although physicians declared that,
without it, she was not likely to achieve the honours of
maternity. She did abstain, and despite what the oracular
doctors had asserted, she became the mother of Maximilian,
a prince who drank wine enough to compensate for the
abstinence of both his parents. His second wife, Bianca of
Milan, whom Maximilian the "Moneyless" married for her
dowry, was, like the lady in Young's Satires, by no means
afi:aid to call things by their very broadest names ; and
she died of an indigestion, brought on by eating too
voraciously of snails! They were of the large and lively
sort, still reared for the market in the field-preserves near

THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 425

Ulm. If my readers should feel sick at tte thouglit, let
them remember their juvenile days, and "periwinkles,"
and be gentle in their strictures. Leopold the " Angel,"
the second son of the Emperor Ferdinand, surpassed even
his father in abstinence. He reared the most odoriferous
of plants, but inflicted on himself the mortification of
never going near enough to scent them ; and, poor man !
he thought that thereby he was adding a step to a ladder
of good works, by which he hoped to scale heaven !

The grandson of Ferdinand, Joseph I., was a somewhat
free liver, and his intemperate diet was against him when
he caught the smaU-pox. But the medical men were
fiercer foes than his way of life ; for when the eruption was
at its worst, they hermetically closed his apartment, kept
up a blazing fire in it, gave him strong drinks, swathed
him in twenty yards of Enghsh scarlet broadcloth, and
then published, on his dying, that his majesty's decease
was contrary to all the rules of art. His brother and
successor, Charles, did for himself what the doctors did for
Joseph. In 1740 he had the gout, and would go out
hunting in the wet. He was subsequently seized with
what would now be called incipient cholera, aud he would
eat — not melons, hke some of his obstinate and imperial
predecessors, but that delicate dish for an invalid, mush-
rooms stewed in oil! He ate voraciously, and the next
day symptoms ensued which, he was informed, heralded
death. Charles, like Louis Philippe, would not believe his
own medical advisers; and there was some reason in this,
for they stood at his bed-side, disputing as to whether
mushrooms were a digestible diet or the contrary. The
emperor dismissed them from his presence, ordered
his favourite mushrooms, ate the forbidden "fruit" with
intense gastronomic delight, and died in peace.

The table of the great Frederic of Prussia was regu-
lated by himself. There were always from nine to a dozen

426

TABLE TRAITS.

dishes, and these were brought in one at a time. The
king carved the solitary dish, and helped the company.
One singular circumstance connected with this table was,
that each dish was cooked by a different cook, who had a
kitchen to himself ! There was much consequent expense,
with little magnificence. Frederic ate and drank, too,
like a boon companion. His last work, before retiring to
bed, was to receive from his chief cook the bill of fare for
the next day; the price of each dish, and of its separate
ingredients, was marked in the margin. The monarch
looked it cautiously through, generally made out an im-
proved edition, cursed all cooks as common thieves, and
then flung down the money for the next day's expenses.

The late King of Prussia was a sensible man with respect
to his table arrangements. On gala days, and when
it concerned the honour of Prussia that the royal hospi-
tality should assume an appearance of splendour, his table
was as glittering and gastronomic as goldsmiths and cooks
could make it. But in the routine of private and unoffi-
cial life, it was simply that of an opulent merchant,
something, perhaps, like that of Sir Balaam after he had
grown rich. Even then he partook only of the least
savoury dishes, and it was seldom, indeed, that he exceeded
a third glass of wine. His example enforced moderation,
but it did not mar enjoyment, for he loved every man
around him to be merry and wise.

His own wisdom he manifested by a characteristic trait
in 1809. The royal family had returned to Berlin for the
first time since the war had broken oiit in 1806. The
court marshal, deeming that the piping times of peace
were going to endure for ever, waited on Frederic WUliam,
and asked what amount of champagne he should order for
the royal cellars. " None," replied the king ; " I will
drink neither champagne nor any other wine, until all my
subjects — even the very poorest — can afibrd to drink beer

THEIB MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 427

again." The incident was made public, and the king's
■poor neighbours were especially delighted. Many of them
testified their gratitude by sending from their gardens or
little farms various articles for his table. The king ate
thereof with pleasure, and did not forget the givers.

I have spoken of his moderation, but here is an ad-
ditional trait from his table worth mentioning. When he
came to the crown, the grand marshal proposed a more
extended list of viands for the royal table. " Marshal,"
said the king in reply, " I do not feel that my stomach
has become more capacious since I became king. We will
let well alone, and dine to-day even as we have done
heretofore."

In another page I have spoken of Bishop Eglert supping
with the king. Such a guest was not an unfrequent one
at the royal dining-table. On one occasion the bishop had
preached before the court in the morning from Luke
xiv. 8 — 11: "When thou art bidden of any man to a
wedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a more
honourable man than thou be bidden of him ; and he that
bade thee and him come and say unto thee, Give this man
place, and thou begin with shame to take the lower room,"
&c. &c.

The bishop profited by the opportunity to expatiate on
the virtues of diffidence and humility, insisting on their
observance as necessary for the preservation of our happi-
ness. Now, many dignified officials were present at the
banquet in question, and the bishop, who had entered the
saloon last, (which does not say much for the courtesy of
those who preceded him,) meekly took his place at the
lower end of the tabl'e. There the king's scrutinizing eye
fell upon him ; and " Eglert," said Frederic William, " I
see you are self-applying the text from which you preached
to us to-day. But, if I remember rightly, it is also written,
' Friend, go higher.' Come, then, take this chair that is

428 TABLE TEAITS.

near to me!" and the simple but highly embarrassed
prelate walked blushingly to the station appointed him, and
all in his vicinity began to recognise a man whom the
king himself delighted to honour.

This anecdote reminds me, albeit it be "rue with a
difference," of one told of the second of the seven Dukes
of Guise, Duke Francis. This celebrated individual was,
during one part of his bloody career, engaged in the ser-
vice of the Pope, to fight the battles of. the latter against
the King of Naples. He was not successful, and his ho-
liness showered down upon him mordant epigrams and
invitations to dinner. He had accepted one of the latter,
and repaired to the sacro-regal board, after a day in the
course of which he had been engaged serving as acolyte
in the Papal chapel, and holding up the trains of very
obese cardinals. In the banqueting-hall of the descendant
of the poor fisherman, he meekly took the lowest seat. He
had scarcely done so, than a French lieutenant endea-
voured to thrust in below him. " How now, friend!"
said the haughty enough Guise ; " why pushest thou so
rudely to come where there is no room for thee ? " " Marry ! "
said the soldier, " for this reason, that it might not be
said that the representative of a king of France had taken
the last place at a priest's table ! " It was a bold piece of
table-talk to so powerful a man as Guise, who recovered,
and added to his reputation when he subsequently re-
gained, Calais from the English. Previously to this last
feat, when the occupation of Calais formed the subject of
conversation at social boards, there arose the proverbial
expression applied to the bravest of untried men, and ho-
nourable to the reputation of our own ancestors, — " He is
not the sort of man to drive the English out of France ! "
The proverb died out of French society from the day
when Guise drove old Lord Wentworth out of Calais, and
cheated his duchess out of the silks which he found

THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 429

therein, and in which he attired the courtesans whom he
invited to his ducal but not dignified table.

It may fairly be asserted that kings may wear as graceful
an aspect as guests at others' tables, as they do when
enacting the host at their own. The Prince Kegent, dining
oif the mutton which he had helped to cook at Colonel
Hanger's, is indeed no very edifying spectacle. I will in-
troduce my readers to a royal guest of what Hamlet would
call " another kidney."

When the Prussian general Koeckeritz had completed
his fiftieth year of service in 1809, he was residing in
modest apartments, becoming his celibate condition, near
the Neustadt Gate at Potsdam. On the dawn of the day
of his martial jubilee, he was harmoniously greeted by the
bands of the garrison ; but the hautboys did not discourse
such sweet music as was conveyed to him in a letter firom
the king, full of expressions of gratitude for services ren-
dered by him during along half-century to the crown. At
a grand review held in honour of the day, the king em-
braced him in presence of the army, giving in his person
the accolade to every other faithf al soldier who had served
as long ; and when this had been done, Frederic William
not only declared he would escort the old warrior to his
plainly furnished lodgings, but requested to be invited to
the dejeuner d, la fourchette, which he assumed must then
be wanting. Koeckeritz had the pride of Caleb Balder-
stone, and he turned pale at the idea of exposing his do-
mestic economy to the eyes of a king and court. He
grew eloquent in excuses, protested that he was unworthy
of the honour designed for him, and piteously muttered an
apologetical phrase about " old bachelors." " Then why are
you a bachelor i" asked the monarch ; " I have often coun-
selled you to marry, and this very day you shall be pu-
nished for your disobedience." " Well," said the general,
with a sigh, denoting the resignation of despair, "if it

430 TABLE TRAITS.

must be so, I trust your majesty will allow me a few hours
in order to make fitting preparation." The spirit that
possessed Caleb Balderstone suggested this petition. " Not
five minutes !" exclaimed the sovereign ; "you surely have
a crust of bread and a glass of wine to give to us who are
your comrades, and we desire no more ! Come along,
gentlemen !"

Of course, no further resistance was to be thought of,
and the gay and brilliant escort led the grave Koeckeritz
along, looking very much like a criminal who was about to
be hanged with riotous solemnity at his own gates.

But, when he reached those gates, his surprise was ex-
treme. The threshold was covered with flowers, the little
ha,ll was lined with the royal servants in their state suits,
and the space in front of the house was partly occupied by
a score of " trumpets," who no sooner perceived the ap-
proach of the hero of the day than they received him, as
our theatrical orchestras do stage kings, with a " flourish.''
It is hardly necessary to add, that when the old general
conducted his guests within, he found there such a banquet
as Aladdin furnished his widowed mother with by means
of the lamp. Everything was there, whether in or out of
season ; and the rare-looking flasks promised pleasure less
equivocal than that held out by a Calais Boniface upon his
cards, whereon his English visitors were told, that " the
wine shall leave you nothing to hope for !"

" Oh ! oh !" exclaimed the king, " here is bachelor's &re
with a vengeance ! Let us be seated, and show that our
appetites can appreciate what our comrade Koeckeritz has
provided for them." Monarch and servant, honouring and
honoured, sat side by side; and so gay and so prolonged
was the festival, that the king surprised all those who knew
how strictly he lived by rule, by ordering the dinner at
the palace to be retarded for a couple of hours. At that
banquet he entertained the veteran, afiecting to do so in

THEIE MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 431

return for the hospitality displayed by the latter in the
morning. The scene was not without its moving incidents,
for the king had contrived another surprise whereby to
gratify his old friend and servant. As the monarch led
him by the hand to the dining-room, there stood before
him three of the surviving friends of his youth who had
fought with him in the Seven Years' War, and whom he
had not seen for years. The king had got them together,
not without dif&culty ; the general joy that ensued was as
imaUoyed as humanity could make it, and never did
monarch sit at meat with more right to feel pleased, than
Frederic WiUiam on this day of Koeckeritz's jubUee. It
was a day that Henri IV. of France would have delighted
in. That king is said never to have dined better than one
evening previous to the battle of Ivry, when he was so-
journing in a country house under the name of a French
officer. There were no provisions there, but the solitary
lady who was the chatelaine intimated that there was a
retired tradesman who lived near, who was the possessor
of a fine turkey, and who would contribute it towards a
dinner, if he were only invited to partake of it. " Is he a
jolly companion?" asked the supposed officer. The reply
being affirmatively, the citizen and turkey were invited to-
gether, and two merrier guests never sat down with a lady
to cut up a bird and crush a bottle. Henri was in the
most radiant of humours ; and it was when he was at his
brightest, that the bourgeois avowed that he had known him
from the beginning, and that after dining with a king of
France, he trusted that the monarch would not object to
grant him letters of nobility. Henri laughed, which was
as good as consenting, and asked what arms his countship
would assume? " I will emblazon the turkey that founded
my good fortune," answered the aspirant for nobility.
" Ventre Saint-Gris !" exclaimed the king, laughing more
immoderately, " then you shall be a gentleman, and bear

432 TABLE TBAITS.

your turkey 'en pal' on a shield!" The happy citizen
purchased a territorial manor near Alengon, and le Comte
Morel d'Inde was not a conie pour rire.

The Russian Empress Catherine used to affect the good
fellowship that was natural to the first of the Bourbon
kings of France. When she dined with the highly
honoured officers of the regiment of which she was
colonel, she used to hand to each a glass of spirits ^before
the banquet commenced. At her own table the number
of guests was usually select, generally under a dozen.
The lord of the bedchamber sat opposite to her, her own
seat being at the centre of one of the sides, carved one of
the dishes, and presented it to her. She took once of
what was so offered, but afterwards dispensed with such
service. In her days, many of the Russian nobility kept
open tables. Any one who had been duly introduced,
and knew not where to dine, had only to call at a house
where he was known, and to leave word that he intended
to dine there in the afternoon. He was sure to be
welcomed. At the present time, the Russians are more
civilized and less hospitable.

Jermann describes the imperial kitchen at St. Petersburg
as good, delicate, and " meagre,"— the latter being a con-
sequence of the continual eating that is going on, and
the necessity which follows of providing what is light
of digestion. The imperial household tables in the days
of Paul were divided into "stations," an arrangement
which took its rise from a singular incident. The late
empress, like our own Queen Adelaide, was given to
inspect the " domestic accounts,'' and she was puzzled by
finding among them " a bottle of rum " daily charged to
the Naslednik, or heir apparent! Her imperial Majesty
turned over the old "expenses" of the household, to dis-
cover at what period her son had commenced this reprobate
coiu'se of daily rum-drinking; and found, if not to her

THEIE MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 433 '

horror, at least to the increase of her perplexity, that it
dated from the .very day of his birth. The " bottle of
rum" began with the baby, accompanied the boy, and
continued to be charged to the man. He was charged as
drinking upwards of thirty dozen of fine old Jamaica
yearly ! The imperial mother was anxious to discover if
any other of the Czarovitch babies had exhibited the
same alcoholic precocity; and it appears that they were
all alike ; daily, for upwards of a century back, they stood
credited in the household books for that terrible " bottle
of nmi." The empress continued her researches with the
zeal of an antiquary, and her labours were not unre-
warded. She at last reached the original entry. Like all
succeeding ones, it was to the effect of " a bottle of rum
for the Naslednik:" but a sort of editorial note on the
margin of the same page intimated the wherefore : " On
account of violent toothache, a teaspoonful with sugar to
be given, by order of the physician of the imperial court."
The teaspoonful for one day had been charged as abottle,
and the entry once made, it was kept on the books to the
profit of the unrighteous steward, until discovery checked
the fraud, — a fraud, more gigantically amusing than that
of the Uliterate coachman, who set down in his harness-
room book, " Two penn'orth of whipcord, Gd." The
empress showed the venerable delinquency to her husband,
Paul; and Ae, calculating what the temporary toothache of
the imperial baby Alexander had cost him, was afirighted
at the outlay, and declared that he would revolutionise
the kitchen department, and put himself out to board.
The threat was not idly made, and it was soon seriously
realized. A gastronomic contractor was found who
farmed the whole palace, and did his spiriting admirably.
He divided the imperial household into " stations." The
first was the monarch's especial table, for the supply of
which he charged the emperor and empress fifty roubles

434 TABLE TKAITS.

each daily; the table of the archdukes and archduchesses
was supplied at half that price ; the guests of that table,
of whatever rank, were served at the same cost. The
ladies and gentlemen of the household had a "station,"
which was exceedingly well provisioned, at twenty roubles
each. The graduated sliding scale continued to descend
in proportion to the status of the feeders. The upper
servants had superior stomachs, which were accounted
of as being implacable at less than fifteen roubles each.
Servants in livery, with finer lace but coarser digestions,
dieted daily at five roubles each; and the grooms and
scullions were taken altogether at three roubles a-head.
"A wonderful change,'' says Jermann, "ensued in the
whole, winter palace. The emperor declared he had
never dined so well before. The court, tempted by the
more numerous courses, sat far longer at table. The
maids of honour got fresh bloom upon their cheeks, and
the chamberlains and equerries rounder faces; and most
flourishing of all was the state of the household expenses,
although these diminished by one-half. In short, every
one, save cook and butler, was content; and all this was
the result of ' a bottle of rum,' from which the Emperor
Alexander, when heir to the crown, had been ordered
by the physician to take a spoonful for the toothache."

Herr Jermann, who was manager of the imperial com-
pany of German actors in St. Petersburg, frequently
dined at the table of the "second station," or officials'
table. There were six dishes and a capital dessert. He
describes the "drinkables" as consisting of one bottle
of red and one of white wine, two bottles of beer, one of
kislitsohi, and quass ad libitum. The dinner he speaks
lightly of, as inferior on the point of cookery to that of the
best restaurants in the capital. The wine was a light
Burgundy; the beer heavy and Russian. The kislitschi
must have been a powerful crusher of the appetite, it

THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 435

being a sour-sweet drink, prepared from honey, water,
lemon-juice, and a decoction of herbs. Quass is a plain,
cheap beverage, the better sort of which is extracted from
malt, while an inferior sort is an extract of bread-crusts.
It is the national drink of the lower orders. A stranger
finds it at first detestable ; but he not only soon becomes
reconciled to it, but generally prefers it to any other
beverage, especially in the brief scorching summer of St.
Petersburg, when the cooling properties of quass are its
great recommendation.

To talk of the fierceness of a Eussian summer seems
paradoxical, but it is simple truth ; and probably the
court of Naples itself, throughout its long season of heat,
does not consume so much ice as their imperial Muscovite
majesties do in the course of their slow-to-come, quick-to-
go, and sharp-while-it-lasts summer. Nay, the whole
capital eats ice at this season. Ice is thought such a
"necessary" of life, that the first question in taking a
house is, probably, touching the quahty and capability of
the ice-cellar, wherein they pack away as much of the
Neva as they can in solid blocks. They eat it and drink
it, surround their larders with it, and mix it with the
water, beer, quass — ^in short, with whatever they drink.
Nay, more, when there is a superabundance of the mate-
rial, they place it under their beds and on their stoves to
cool their apartments. So tremendous is the dust and
heat of a Eussian summer, that, for inconvenience, it is only
the opposite extreme of annoyance to that experienced in
the wintry visitations of frost. The ice-tubs of the popular
vendors in the streets are enveloped and covered with wet
cloths, to protect them from the heat of the sun. I need
not say that this is not the season at which a visitor should
resort to the capital. St. Petersburg in January, and
Naples in July, are the respective times and places to be
observed by those who can bear the consequences.
F F 2

436

TABLE TRAITS.

I do not know what may be the case with regard to the
fruit eaten at the imperial table j but, generally speaking,
fruit is never eaten by a Russian until it has been blest by
a priest. Jermann, alluding to this custom, praises it on
sanitary grounds, for, he says, the fruit has no chance of
earning a benediction unless it be ripe ; but if it then be
taken to church, the blessing is granted with much attend-
ant solemnity.

■ I do not believe that the czars were ever accustomed to
dine in such state as the kaisers. The old emperors of
Germany, on state occasions, were waited on at dinner by
the two happy feudatory princes of the empire. On one
of these occasions, we are told that old General Dalzell,
the terrible enemy of the Scottish Covenanters, was invited
to dine with the kaiser, and the prince-waiter nearest to
him in attendance was no less a personage than the
Prince of Modena, head of the house of Este. Some
years afterwards, the Duke of York (James II.) invited
Dalzell to dine with himself and Mary of Modena. That
proud lady, however, made some show of reluctance to sit
down en famille with the old general ; but the latter
lowered her pride by telling her, that he was not unac-
quainted with the greatness of the princes of Modena, and
that the last time he had sat at table with the Emperor of
Germany, a prince of that 'house was standing in attend-
ance behind the emperor's chair.

There were other good points about Dalzell's character ;
in proof of which may be cited his dining with Dundas,
an old Covenanting Scotch laird, who would not forego
his long prayers before dinner, and who especially prayed
that Dalzell and his royal master might have their hard
hearts softened towards the Covenanting children of the
Lord. When the prayer was ended, and dinner about to
begin, Dalzell complimented his host on his courage in
fearing man less than God. The anecdote reminds me of

THEIE MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 437

one in connexion with a dinner given by a gentleman of
one of our " Protestant denominations," in honour of the
presence of a new minister and his bride. Prayer preceded
the repast, and it was given by the host, who^ introducing
therein the welcomed strangers, said, "We thank thee,
O Lord, that thou hast conducted hither in safety thy
servants, our new minister and his wife. It is thou, 0
Lord, who preservest both man and beast ! " This was
more like a kick than a compliment j but it only called
up a smUe on the pretty features of the minister's lady.

Let us now cross the Atlantic, with Cortez and his com-
panions, and contemplate Montezuma in his household and
at his table. Barbarian as the Spanish invaders accounted
Mm to be, he was superior in many respects to most of
his royal contemporaries in Europe. He was not less
magnificent than Solomon, and he was far more cleanly
than Louis XIV.

On the terraced roof of his palace, thirty knights could
tilt at each other, without complaining of want of space.
His armouries were filled with weapons almost as destruc-
tive as any to be found in the arsenals of civilized Christian
kings. His granaries were furnished with provisions paid
by tributaries j three hundred servants tended the beauti-
ful birds of his aviaries ; his menageries were the wonder
and terror of beholders ; and his dwarfs were more hideous,
and his ladies more dazzling, than potentate had ever before
looked upon with contempt or admiration. His palace
within and without was a marvel of Aztec art. It was
smrounded by gardens, glad wiih fountains and gay
flowers. One thousand ladies shared the retirement of
this splendid locality, with a master more glittering than
anything by which he was environed, — who changed his
apparel four times daily, never putting on again a garment
he had once worn, and who, eating off and drinking from
gold, (except on state occasions, when his table was covered

438 TABLE TEAITS.

with services of Cholulan porcelain,) never used a second
time the vessels which had once ministered to the in-
dulgence of his appetite.

It is said eulogistically of his cooks, that they had thirty
different ways of preparing meat, — a poor boast, perhaps,
compared with that of the Parisian chefs, who have six
hundred and eighty-five ways to dress eggs ! Three
hundred dishes were daily placed before the monarch; and
such as were required to be kept hot at table were in
heated earthenware stands made for the purpose. And it
is even asserted, that this autocrat occasionally killed time
before dinner by watching the cooking of his viands, a
practice in which, according to Peter Pinder, that honest
old English king used to indulge, who dined off boiled
mutton at two, and to whom the funniest sight in the world
was the clown in a pantomime swallowing carrots.

The ordinary dishes of Montezuma consisted of very
dainty fare; namely, domestic fowls, geese, partridges,
quails, venison, Indian hogs, pigeons, hares, rabbits, and
other productions of his country, including — ^it is alleged
by some and denied by others — some very choice dairy-fed
baby, when this choice article happened to be in season !
In cold weather enormous torches, that flung forth not
only light but warmth and aromatiis odours, lent ad-
ditional splendour to the scene; and to temper at once the
glare and the heat, screens with deliciously droll devices
upon them, framed in gold, were placed before the bril-
liant flame.

The sovereign sat, like his links, also protected by a
screen. He was not as barbarous as the most Christian
kings of France, who fed in public; nor was he personally
tended like them by awkward Ganymedes of a middle age.
Four Hebes stood by the low throne and table of their
master, and these poured water on his hands, and offered
him the napkin, white as driven snow, or as the cloth on

THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT. 439

■which the four hundred dishes stood waiting his attention.
Women as fair presented him with bread ; but even these
fair ministers retired a few steps, when his sacred majesty
addressed himself to the common process of eating. Then
a number of ancient but sprightly nobles took their place.
With these Montezuma conversed; and, when he was par-
ticularly pleased with a sage observation or a sprightly
remark, a plate of pudding bestowed by the royal hand
made one individual happy, and all his fellows bitterly
jealous. The pudding, or whatever the dish might be,
was eaten in silent reverence ; and whiLe an Aztec emperor
was at meat, no one in the palace dared, at peril of his life,
speak above his breath. Montezuma is described as being
but a moderate eater, but fond of finiits, and indulging,
with constraint upon his appetite, in certain drinks which
were of a stimulating quality, such as are found in coun-
tries where civilization and luxury are at their highest.

" One thing I forgot, and no wonder," says Bernal
Diaz, "to mention in its place, and that is, during the
time Montezuma was at dinner, two very beautiful women
were busily employed making small cakes, with eggs and
other things mixed therein. These were delicately white,
and when made, they presented them to him on plates
covered with napkins. Also, another kind of bread was
brought to him on long leaves, and plates of cakes re-
sembling wafers. After he had dined, they presented to
him three little canes, highly ornamented, containing
liquid amber, mixed with a herb they call tobacco ; and
when he had sufficiently viewed and heard the singers,
dancers, and buffoons, he took a little of the smoke of
one of those canes, and then laid himself down to sleep.
The meal of the monarch ended, all his guards and atten-
dants sat down to dinner, and, as near as I could judge,
about a thousand plates of those eatables that I have
mentioned, were laid before them, with vessels of foaming

440 TABLE TRAITS.

chocolate, and fruit in immense quantities. For his women
and various inferior servants, his establishment was of- a
prodigious expense, and we were astonished, amid such a
profusion, at the vast regularity that prevailed."

What a contrast with the meal of this splendid barbarian
is that of princes of the same complexion, but of different
race, the Arab ! We may fittingly include among sove-
reigns those Arab princes whose word, if it be not heeded
far, is promptly obeyed within the little circle of 'their rule.
Skins on the ground serve for tablecloths ; the dishes are,
in their contents, only the reflection of each other, and
in the centre of the array whole Iambs or sheep lie boiled
or roasted. The chief and his followers dine in successive
relays of company. Sometimes the skin is spread before
the door of the tent, whether in a street or in the plain, and
the passers-by, even to the beggars, invited with a " Bis-
raillah," In God's name, fall to; and having eaten, exclaim,
"Hamdallilah!" God be praised! and go their way.

Not less may we include, in the roll of Majesty at Meat,
those Pilgrim Fathers who were the pioneers of civiliza-
tion and liberty in America. Scant indeed was the table
of that " sovereign people," until they found security to
sow seed, and reap the harvest in something like peace.
The first meal which they enjoyed, after long months of
labour, disease, and famine, was when they had constructed
the little fort at Plymouth, behind which they might eat
in safety and thankfulness. "The captain," says Mr.
Bartlett, in his "Pilgrim Fathers," "had brought with
him ' a very fat goose,' and those on shore had ' a fat crane,
and a mallard,' and 'a dried neat's tongue.' This fare
was, no doubt, washed down with good English beer and
strong waters; and thus, notwithstanding the gloom that
hung over them, the day passed cheerfully and sociably
away." Such was the first official dinner of the " majesty
of the people " beyond the Atlantic.

THEIR JUJJESTIES AT MEAT. 441

And having got to the "majesty of the people," I am
reminded of a " popular majesty," the citizen king, Louis
Philippe. He was a monarch economically minded, and
kept the most modest yet not worst furnished of tables.
His family often sate down before he arrived, detained as
he often was by state affairs. When all rose as he quietly
entered the dining-room, his stereotyped phrase was,
" Que personne ne se derange pour moi," and therewith
ensued as little ceremony as when "William Smith" and
his household sate down to an uncrowned dinner at the
little inn at Newhaven.

They who are curious to see how admirably Louis
Philippe was constituted for making a poor-law com-
missioner, or a parochial relieving overseer, should peruse
the graphic biography of the king written by Alexander
Dumas. Therein is a list, made out by the monarch, of
what he thought was sufficient for the table of the princes
and princesses; and Louis of Orleans condescends to name
the number of plates of soup, or cups of coffee, that he
deemed sufficient for the requirement and support of the
younger branches of his house. It shows that the soul of
a crafty " gargottier" was in the body of the citizen king.
But we have not yet contemplated the appearance and
behaviour of our own sovereigns at table, out of respect
for whom we now allot a chapter, but a brief one, to
themselves.

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES.

The utilitarians of history have declared that half our
treasured incidents of story are myths. Rufus was not
slain by Sir Walter Tyrrell ; Eichard III. was a marvel-
lously proper man ; and the young princes were not
smothered in the Tower. They have laid their hands on
our legends, as Augustus did his on the nose of the dead
Alexander, and with the same effect, — under the touch it
crumbled into dust. The infidels refuse even to have
faith in that table trait of Alfred, which showed him
making cakes, or rather marring them, in the neat-herd's
cottage. Mr. Wilkie may have prettily painted the inci-
dent, bvit its existence, anywhere but on canvas and in
the poet's brain, they ruthlessly deny. I do not know
but that they are right.

We march into the bowels of more trustworthy ground,
when we pass the frontier of the Eoman period. William
the Norman we know had a huge appetite for venison ;
and the Saxon chronicler says, that he loved the "high
deer " as if he had been their father, which is but an
equivocal compliment to his paternal affection. His table
indulgences cost the life of hundreds, arid the ruin of tens
of hundreds. It brought on corpulency ; his corpulency
begot a poor joke in Philip of France ; and of this joke
was born such wrath in the soul of William, that he
carried fire and sword into that kingdom, and was cut

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES. 443

short in his career, ere he had accomplished the full
measure of his revenge.

Rufus was as fat as his fether, and as majestic both in
his oaths and his appetites. To every passion he yielded
himself a slave j and he feasted, like so many who would
affect to be disgusted at his dishonesty, without troubling
himself as to who " suffered." He never paid- a creditor
whom he could cheat ; and again, like many of the same
class, he was most affable at table ; his drinking com-
panions were on an equality with him ; and in such fel-
lowship, over gross food and huge goblets mantling to the
brim, he cut unclean jokes on his own unclean deeds, at
which his servile and drunken hearers roared consumedly,
and swore he was a god. There was some grandeur in his
ideas, however, for he built Westminster Hall, as a vesti-
bule to a palace, wherein he intended to hold high revel
such as the world had never seen ; and a vestibule it has
now become, but to a palace wherein sits a different sort
of dignity to that dreamed of by the low-statured, fat,
fierce, and huge feeding Rufus.

All the Norman kings were fearful objects at which to
fling jokes; and the appetite of Henry I. was ruined, and
his sanguinary ire aroused, by a derisive passage in a poem
by Luke de Barrl. The king made the table shake as he
declared that he would let wretched versifiers know what
they were to expect if they offended the King of England ;
and Barrg suffered the loss of his eyes. Henry ate and
drank none the less joyously for the dead. But Beauclerc
was a more refined gastronome than his brothers, as
befitted his name ; and though in many respects his court
was horribly Ucentious, yet when he went from one
demesne to another, to consume its revenues upon the
spot, the feasting there seems to have been attended by as
much moderation as merriment.

Stephen had more to do with fighting than feasting, and

444 TABLE TRAITS.

•witli keeping castles rather than cooks ; but lie knew ho\j
to gain allies by the fine science of giving dinners, and
there was no more courteous host than he. While the
king and the barons kept high mirth, however, the
people were in the lowest misery. While the king gave
political feasts, his subjects were perishing of starvation by
thousands.

His successor, the Second Henry, was but a poor patron
of cooks, as was to be expected of a monarch who had
continually to defend himself against the rebellions, not
only of subjects, but of his own children. Of the latter,
the only one who loved him was his natural son Geoffrey
It is no wonder that this melancholy king was the first to
do away with the old custom of having a coronation
dinner thrice every year, on assembling the States at the
three great festivals. He was ever in the midst of affrays;
and once he fell among a body of monks, who checked
their turbulence to complain to the king ; their complaint
being that their abbot, the Bishop of Winchester, had
cut off three dishes from their table. " How many has
he left you ?" said the king. " Good heavens !" said the
monks, " he has only left us ten." " Ten ! " said the
monarch ; " I am content with but three ; and I hope
your bishop will reduce you to a level with your king."
They, of course, were highly disgusted at the remark.

Eiohard Coeur de Lion, that copper monarch, was too
busy with mischief to have leisure for much banqueting ;
but he loved one thing, and that was venison, the poor
stealers of which he punished by the most horrible of
mutilations. In his reign, an ox and a horse cost four
shillings each ; a sow was to be bought for a shilling ;
a sheep with fine wool, for tenpence, and with "coarse
wool, for sixpence ; so that, taking into account the
difference in the valuation of money, people who had the
money to purchase with, could procure mutton and pork

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIE TABLES. 445

at a rate about a dozen times cheaper than the same
articles can be procured at now. The sovereign did not
trouble himself aboiit paying anybody j and when he gave
a banquet, the very last thing he thought of was whether
it were ever paid for or not.

Richard had no virtue but courage ; and John resem-
bled his worthless brother in every thing but courage.
He had the same love for venison ; and a joke at dinner
upon a fat haunch, which he said had come from a noble
beast that had never heard mass, was looked upon by the
clerical gentlemen present as a reflection upon their
corpulency. They never forgot it ; and it was, perhaps,
partly a consequence of their retentive memory, that the
monks of Swineshead poisoned the dish of which the king
partook on the occasion of almost his last dinner. He
certainly never enjoyed another.

Henry III. was the first of our kings whose reign ex-
ceeded half-a^centmy in duration. He was a moderate
man, loved plain fare, and cared more for masses than
merriment. He was an easy, indolent monarch, with
troubles enough to have fired him to activity; but he
would have given half his realm for the privilege of daily
dining in peace and quietness, a boon seldom vouchsafed
to him. His subjects must have dined as ill as himself, if
we may judge by the extraordinary variation in the prices
(Jf articles of consumption during his reign. Thus the
price of wheat, for instance, varied from one shilling to a
pound a quarter. The royal statute upon ale rather dis-
pleased all citizens of this period, for by it the price was
fixed at a halfpenny per gallon in cities, while in the
country the same quantity might be sold for a farthing.
A gallon of ale for a halfpenny ought, however, to have
satisfied the most thirsty of drinkers.

The finigal Edward I. very little patronised either eating
or drinking, beyond what nature required. He was a very

446 TABLE TEAITS.

moderate wine-drinker, but he exceedingly offended those
who were otherwise, by imposing a duty of two shillings a
tun on all wine imported, over and above the old existing
duty. The unlucky Edward II. was to the first Edward,
what Louis XVI. was to Louis XIV., the scape-goat for
the crimes of a predecessor and tyrant too powerful to be
resisted. The banqueting-room of this Edward, however,
was, as is often the case with such princes, oftener used
than the council-room, and the favourites feasted with
their weak lord until rebellion marred the festivity. There
never was a merrier reign (despite pubhc calamity) closed
by so terrible a murder as that of this king, whose last
dinner would have almost disgusted a dog.

Edward III. was a gorgeous patroniser of the culinary
art; the cooks and his guests adored him ; and Windsor
Castle, which he built as a fortress and a pleasaunce, is a
monument of his power and his taste. But his love for
good cheer was imitated by his subjects to their ruin ; and
king and parliament interfered to remedy by penalty,
what might have been obviated by good example. Ser-
vants^ were prohibited from eating flesh, meat, or fish,
above once a-day. By another law, it was ordained that
no one should be allowed, either for dinner or supper,
above three dishes in each course, and not above two
courses ; and it is likewise expressly declared that soused
meat is to count as one of these dishes. And of
these laws I will only observe, that if they were obeyed,
servants and citizens of the days of Edward III. were a
very different class of people from what they are at
present.

When it is stated of Richard II. that two thousand
cooks and three hundred servitors were employed in the
royal kitchen, we think we become acquainted with the
gastronomic. tastes of that unhappy king. But as he was
one of those whose virtues were his own, and his vices were

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIE TABLES. 447

of others' making, so this Sardanapalian array of cooks was
kept up by those who ruled from behind the throne, and
finally left the king to starve, despite his counting cooks
by thousands. His chief cuisinier is known only by the
initials C. S. S., under which he wrote a culinary work in
English, "On the Forme of Cury." In this work, he
speaks of poor Richard, his royal master, as the " best and
royaJlest viander of all Christian kynges."

Henry IV. kept a princely but not a profuse table.
He was the first king in England whose statutes may be
said to have acted as a check on the freedom of after-
dinner conversation upon religious matters; for in his
reign took place the first execution in England, on
account of opinions connected with matters of faith. The
household expenses of this monarch are set down at some-
thing less than £20,00.0 per annum of the money of the
time; and this sum, moderate enough, appears to have
been fairly applied to the purposes for which it was
intended. A porpoise was a fashionable dish in the time
-of Henry V., who first had it at the royal table, and thus
sanctioned its use at tables of lower degree. Loyal folks
in those days copied the example set them by their
sovereign, as they did in the later days of George III.
boiled mutton and caper sauce, when country gentlemen
" dined like the king, sir, at two o'clock." But Henry V.
was oppressed with debts, and, like many men in similar
positions, his banquets were all the more splendid, and his
prodigality was equal to his liabilities. So extravagant
a monarch bequeathed but a poor inheritance to Henry VI.,
who was occasionally as hard put to it for a dinner as ever
the Second Charles was. When Edward IV. jumped into
poor Henry's seat, he found a host of angry persons who
disputed his power, and these he took care to conciliate
by the most powerful, nay irresistible means that were
ever applied to the solution of a difficulty, or the removal

448 TABLE TEAITS.

of ari obstruction. He simply invited them to dinner ;
and, certainly, up to that time England had never seen
a king who gave dinners on so extravagantly profuse a
scale. They were marked, however, by something of a
barbaric splendour; and the monarch, gay and glittering
as he was, dazzling in dress, and overwhelmingly exu-
berant of spirits, was more like William de la Marck than
any more knightly host. In short, Edward was but a
coarse beast at table. " In homine tarn corpulento," says
the Croyland chronicler, "tantis sodalitiis, vanitatibus,
crapulis, luxuiiis et cupiditatibus dedito," — a sort of testi-
monial to character which neither monarch nor man could
be justified in being proud of. The young Edward V. is the
" petit Dauphin " of English history, but with a less cruel
destiny, for he was at least not starved to death, amid dirt,
darkness, and terror, but mercifully, if roughly, murdered,
and so saved from the long and yet unexpiated assassi-
nation of the innocent and helpless Louis XVII. His
murderer sought to make people forget the heinousness
of his crime, by the double splendour of his coronation
dinners. The ceremony and the festival took place, not
only in London, but in York; and Kichard hoped he had
feasted both the northern and southern provinces into
sentiments of loyalty. A curious incident preceded the
first dinner, — ^the anointing of himself and consort at the
coronation. There is nothing singular in the fact, but
there is in the manner of it. Eichard and his queen
stripped themselves naked to the waist, in order that the
unction might be more liberally poured over them, — and
in Eichard's own case, perhaps for another reason, that
the great nobles who were present might see that they
were not about to sit down to dinner with a sovereign
who was as deformed in body as his enemies declared
him to be.

Almost all young readers of history take their first

ENGLISH KINGS AT THBIH TABLES. 449

permanent idea of Henry VII. from that gallant Eioh-
mondj in Shakspeare's Tragedy, who comes in like an
avenging angel, at tiie beginning of the fifth act, and has
it all his own generous way, until he sticks " the bloody
and devouring bear,'' and sends a note to Elizabeth to
come and be married. This Elizabeth, by the way, was
the good mother of Henry VIII., and she was the only
woman for whom that capricious prince ever felt a spark
of pure affection. His love and respect for her were
permanent, and the fact merits to be recorded. But to
return to Henry VII., and to conduct him to the dinner-
table, where alone we have present business with him ; I
do not know that I can find a better " trait " touching
himself and his times, than one connected with his royal
visit to York.

He was received in the city with more than ordinary
ceremony, and loudly-expressed delight at the sight of
his " sweet-favoured" face ; " some casting out of obles and
wafers, and some casting out of comfits in great quantities,
as it had been hailstones, for joy and rejoicing of the
king's coming.'' But I must pass over the outward
show — how Augustans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and
Dominicans met him at Micklegate, and how these, with
priors, and friars, and canons of hospitals, and priests, and
knights, and noble, and gentle, and simple, accompanied
the monarch to the Minster, and thence to the arch-
bishop's palace, where Henry resided during his stay in
the northern capital. The grandest banquet given to
him during his sojourn, was in this palace, on the eve of
the festival of St. George : the great hall was divided
into a centre and two aisles. In each division there were
two tables, half-a-dozen in all. The king sat at the
centre table, arrayed in all the pomp and glory of a
ting j — George and garter, crown, and England's sceptre.
One individual only was esteemed worthy of being seated

G G

450 TABLE TRAITS.

at the same table, namely, the Archbishop of York, who
was quite as powerful a man, in his way, as Henry Tudor
himself. Knights carved the joints, and earls waited
upon prince and prelate. Lord Scrope, of Bolton, because
he was a Knight of the Garter, served the king with
water ; another member of chivalry handed the cup, and
the sovereign's meat was especially carved for him by a
Welsh cousin, Sir David Owen. The distribution of the
other tables exhibited a judicious mixture of priest and
layman. At the first table in the centre of the hall (the
cross-table at the top being occupied by the king and the
archbishop) sat two secular dignitaries, the Lords Chan-
cellor and Privy Seal, and with them, the Abbots of
St. Mary and Fountains, with the archbishop's suffragans,
other prelates, and the royal chaplains ; thus the chief
members of the clergy were seated in greatest numbers
near the king. The second table was entirely occupied
by lay nobility, earls, barons, knights and esquires of the
king's body. Of the two tables in the right aisle, the
city clergy and the Minster choir occupied one to them-
selves. At the upper end of the other table were several
knights of the garter, all sitting on one side, " and beneath
them a void space, and then other honest persons filled
that table." We are glad to fall on the term " other
honest," or we might have been tempted to believe that a
distinction was made between honesty and nobility. The
tables in the left aisle were occupied, one by the municipal
authorities and other citizen guests; the second by the
judges, " and beneath them other honest persons," again.
At the rear of the king's table a stage was erected, on which
stood the royal of&cer of arms, who cried his " largesse "
three times, in the usual manner, and doubtless with
something of the stentorian powers made familiar to us
by the late Mr. Toole, and the present loud and lively
Mr. Barker. " The suruape," we are told, " was drawn

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES. 451

by Sir John Turberville, the knight-marshal ; and after
the dinner there was a voide, when the king and his nobles
put off their robes of state, except such as were knights
of the garter, who rode to even-song, attired in the habit
of their order ;'' and a very fitting close to a feast, — and a
good example is held forth therein to all who rise from a
festival without any more thought of being thankful for
it, than is impUed by trying to find out the reflection oi
their nose in the mahogany.

The following table story, cited by Southey, furnishes
another illustration of social, and, indeed, of political, life
about this time : —

" Henry (then Richmond), on his march from Milford,,
lodged one night with his friend David Llwyd, at Matha'-
fam. David had the reputation of seeing into the future,
and Richmond, whether in superstition or compliment,
privately inquired of him, what would be the issue of his
adventure. Such a question, he was told, was too im-
portant to be immediately answered, but in the morning
a reply should be made. The wife of David saw that her
husband was unusually grave during the evening ; and
having learnt the cause, she said, ' How can you have any
difficulty about your answer ? TeU him he wiU succeed
gloriously. If he does, you will receive honours and
rewards. But, if it fail, depend upon it, he will never
come here to reproach you.' " Hence, it is said, a Welsh
proverb, " A wife's advice without asking it."

Henry VIII. loved to take a quiet dinner, occasionally,
with his chancellor, at Chelsea ; and there he would walk
in the garden, with his arm round that neck which he
afterwards flung beneath the axe of the executioner. He
was given to indulgences of all sorts, and with respect to
those of the appetite and palate, he was well served by
his incomparable clerk of the kitchen, honest and clever
WUliam Thynne, who was not a mere clerk of the kitchen,
G G 2

452 TABLE TEAITS.

but a gentleman and scholar to boot ; loving poetry though
he was no poet, and editing Chaucer with as much zeal as
that with which he regulated the accounts of his kitchen
clerkship. Henry ate not wisely, but too well ; and this
huge feeding brought him at last to such a size, that he
could not be moved but by aid of *' a machine." In other
words, I suppose, he could not walk, and was compelled
to submit to locomotion in a chair. Among the sove-
reigns who assembled at the Congress of Vienna, and who
were as strangely there together as the half-dozen kings
whom Candide met at the table d'Mte in Venice, was that
monster of a man, the King of Wurtemburg. This
mountain of flesh dined daily at the imperial table, where
a semicircular ' piece was cut out of the mahogany, in
order that the stomach of the monarch might rest com-
fortably against the table, when engaged in its appropriate
work. He did not lack wit for abounding in fatness, and
to him, I believe, is properly attributed the neat saying,
when he saw Lord Castlereagh in simple civilian's dress,
without a star, amid the gold lace, gems, jewels, ties, tags,
and glittering uniforms of the crowd around him. The
king asked who he was, and on being informed, he
remarked : " Ma foi ! il est bien distingv^ I " He could not
have paid the same compliment to the noble Stewart's wife,
if it be true, as was reported, that at one of the state
dinners, or state balls, she appeared with her husband's
jewelled garter, worn as a bandeau, and " Honi soit qui
mal y pense " burning in diamonds upon her forehead.

May it not have been the unpleasant effects of Henry's
gastronomic indulgences that made of him a dabbler in
medicine? Many of his prescriptions in his own hand-
writing are still extant, and some of them are in the
British Museum. He invented a plaister, and was the
concocter of more than one original ointment for the cure
of indigestion. He also prepared "a plaister for the Lady

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES. 453

Ana of Cleves, to mollify and lessen certain swellings
proceeding from cold, and to dissipate tlie boils on tlie
stomach." His majesty in some of Ms after-dinner
ruminations professed also to have discovered a remedy
for the plague ; the prescription for which he sent to the
lord mayor. He was very tender of the health of Wolsey,
when the cardinal little regarded his own. His majesty,
on one occasion, counsels his minister, if he would soon
be relieved from "the sweating,'' to take light suppers,
and to drink wine very moderately, and to use a certain
liind of piU. I do .not know if Henry's cookery and
kitchen at all smelt of unorthodoxy before the Eefor-
mation, but it is a fact that, when Cardinal Campeggio
came over here on the business of the divorce of Henry
and Catherine, he was especially charged by the Pope
to look into the state of cookery in England generally,
and in the royal palace in particular.

The royal table of Elizabeth was a solemnity indeed.
But it was all a majestically stupendous sham. The
attendants thrice bent their knee as they approached
to offer her the different dishes; and when these cere-
monies had been gone through, the queen rose and retired
to a private room, where the meats were placed before
her, and she was left to dine as comfortably as the citizens
and their wives of Eastcheap and Aldersgate.

Among the numerous new year's gifts made to Eliza-
beth, and by which she contrived to maintain a splendid
wardrobe, gifts of good things for her table were not
wanting. One of her physicians presented her with
a box of foreign sweetmeats; another doctor with a
pot of green ginger; while her apothecaries gave her
boxes of lozenges, ginger-candy, and other conserves.
" Mrs. Morgan gave a box of cherries and one of apricots."
The queen's master-cook and her Serjeant of the pastry
presented her with various confectionary and preserves.

454 TABLE TRAITS.

Elizabetli and her " maids" both dined and breakfasted
upon very solid principles and materials. Beef and beer
were consumed at breakfast, — "a repast for a ploughman!"
it may be said. Alas! ploughmen are content, or seem
so, to strengthen their sinews as they best may of a
morning with poor bread and worse tea. Elizabeth made
a truly royal bird of the goose, — a distinction which her
sister Mary failed to give to the cygnet, the stork, and the
crane. These no more suited the national taste than
that Crimean delicacy, a Eussian oyster, and which all
Englishmen who have tasted thereof pronounce to be
a poisonous dab of rancid putty. Yet Russian princes
are fond thereof, and Eussian sovereigns order them for
especial favourites; — just as the Prince Eegent, whenever
Lord Eldon was to dine at Carlton-house, always com-
manded the chancellor's favourite dish to be placed near
him, — ^liver and bacon.

The household expenditure of James I. amounted to
£100,000 sterling yearly; double the sum required for
the same purpose by Elizabeth; and if "cock a leekie"
and "haggis" were dishes to which his national taste
gave fashion, the more foreign delicacies of snails and
legs of frogs, dressed in a variety of ways, were readily
eaten by the very daintiest of feeders. The taste of the
purveyors was, however, something clumsy. What would
now be said if a chef sent up to table four huge pigs,
belted and harnessed with ropes of sausages, and all tied
together to a monstrous bag-pudding ?

The court of James I. was uncleanly enough, but it was
made worse by the example of the Danish king and his
courtiers, on the royal visit to the Stuart. " The Danish
custom of drinking healths was scrupulously observed, and
in a company of even twenty or thirty, every person's
health was required \o be drunk in rotation; sometimes
a lady or an absent patron was toasted on the knees, and,

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES. '455

as a proof of love or loyalty, the pledger's blood was even
mingled with the wine." It is well known that the
ladies of the court, as weU as the gentlemen, got " beastly
drunk," in honour of the visit of the King of Denmark
to his sister, the consort of James I.

James, whose taste in gastronomy was not a very
delicate one, used to say that if ever he were called upon
to provide a dinner for the devil, his biU of fare should
consist of "a pig, a poll of ling and mustard, and a pipe of
tobacco for digestion."

There was more temperance under Charles I., and
increased moderation under the Commonwealth, when
Cromwell's table was remarkable for its simplicity. The
civic feasts of those days were also distinguished by their
decorous sobriety; and it is, perhaps, worth noticing that
the '■' show" followed, and did not precede the dinner.

Charles I. was served with a world of old-fashioned cere-
mony, not unlike that which ought to have made Louis XIV.
very uncomfortable. The fact, however, is, that both
monarchs were pleased with the cumbrous solemnities of
state, and nothing affected our "English king more in his
fallen fortunes than the rude service which he received at
the hands of the Puritan servitors of whose masters he
was the captive. When he was in durance at Windsor,
his meat was brought to him uncovered, and carried with-
out any observance of respectful form, by the common
soldiers. No trial or " say" of the meats was made ; no
cup presented on the knee. This absence of ceremony
wounded Charles to the very quick. It chafed him more
than greater sorrows did subsequently. It was, he observed,
the refusal to him of a service which was paid, according
to ancient custom, to many of his subjects; and rather
than submit to the humiliation, he chose to diminish the
number of dishes, and to take his meals in strict privacy.

There are few kings who had such variety of experience

456 TABLE TEAITS

in matters of the table as Charles II. The first spoonful
of medicine that was offered him he resisted with a deter-
mined aversion which never left him for that sort oipabtt-.
lum. His table was but siirjple enough during the latter
years of his father, but it was worse after the fatal day of
Worcester. He was glad then, at White Lady's, to eat
"bread and cheese, such as we could get, it being just
beginning to be day ; " and " bread, cheese, small beer, and
nothing else," sufficed him in the oak. Bread, butter, ale
and sack, he swallowed in country inns, and seemed rather
to look on the masquerade and the meals as a joke.

When he was lying hid in Spring Coppice, the goodwife
Yates brought to his most sacred majesty " a mess of milk,
some butter, and eggs," — ^better fare than the parched peas
which were found, in after days, in the pocket of the fugi-
tive Monmouth. The women provided for him as tenderly
in his hour of hunger and trial, as their ebony sisters did
for Mungo Park in his African solitude. When Charles
arrived at the house at Boscobel, he " ate bread and, cheese
heartily," and (as an extraordinary), WiUiam Penderefl's wife
made his majesty a posset of fine milk and small beer, and
got ready some warm water to wash his feet, not only ex-
tremely dirty, but much galled with travel." The king, in
return, called the lady " my dame Joan,'' and the conde-
scension quickened her hospitality ; for shortly after, she
"provided some chickens for his majesty's supper, a dainty
he had not lately been acquainted with. But the king
and his followers not only longed for more substantial fare,
but were not very scrupulous as to the means of obtaining
it. Colonel Carlis, for instance, went into the sheepcot of
a farmer residing near Boscobel, and like an impudent as
well as a hungry thief " he chose one of the best sheep,
sticks him with his dagger, then sends WiUiam for the
mutton, who brings him home on his back." The next
morning was a Sunday morning, and Charles, having mut-

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES. 457

tered his prayers, went eagerly to the parlour to look after
the stolen mutton. It was hardly cold, but Will Penderell
" brought a leg of it into the parlour ; his majesty called for
a knife and a trencher, and cut some of it into collops,
and pricked them with the knife-point, then called for a
frying-pan and butter, and fried the ooUops himself, of
which he ate heartily. Colonel CarHs, the while, being but
under-cook (and that, honour enough too), made the fire,
and turned the collops in the pan. When the colonel,"
adds the faithful Blount, who records this table trait, " af-
terwards attended his majesty in France, his majesty, call-
ing to remembrance this passage among others, was pleased
merely to propose it, as a problematical question, whether
himself or the colonel were the master cook at Boscobel,
and the supremacy was of right adjudged to his majesty."
Circumstances which made of the royal adventurer a king
were the spoiling of an excellent cook. When he was
secretly sojourning at Trent, his meat was, for the most
part, to prevent the danger of discovery, dressed in his
own chamber; " the cookery whereof served him for some
divertisement of the time." The king better understood
cookery as a science than the machinery of it. When he
stood in the kitchen of Mr. Tombs's house at Longmarston,
disguised as " Will Jackson," the busy cook-maid bade him
wind up the jack. " Will Jackson " was obedient and
attempted it, but hit not the right way, which made the
maid in sotne passion ask, " What countryman are you,
that you know not how to wind up a jack 1" Will Jackson
answered very satisfactorily, " I am a poor tenant's son of
Colonel Lane, in Staffordshire. We seldom have roast meat,
but when we have, we don't make use of a jack j" which
in some measure assuaged the maid's indignation. Never
had the sacredness of majesty been in such peril since the
period when Alfred marred instead of made the cakes of
the neatherd's angry wife. But Charles escaped to his

458 TABLE TEAITS.

rather hungry exile in France ; — and gee, how sweet are
the uses of adversity ! When this charming prince was
restored to the throne, he brought with him two gifts of
which the nation had heard little for some years; — one
was the Church Liturgy, and the other, " God d — n ye," —
a fashionable phrase which has tumbled from the court
to the alley.

It can hardly be said that Charles, when king, fulfilled
the requirement which Lord Chesterfield subsequently laid
down, when he insisted that a man should be gentleman-
like even in his vices. When Williani of Orange came to
England as the suitor of the king's niece, the Princess
Mary, Charles took an unclean delight in making the
Dutchman drunk. Evelyn says : — "One night, at a sup-
per given by the Duke of Buckingham, the king made
him (William) drink very hard ; the heavy Dutchman was
naturally averse to it, but being once entered, was the
most frolicsome of the company ; and now the mind took
him to break the windows of the chambers of the maids of
honour ; and he had got into their apartments had they
not been timely rescued. His mistress, I suppose," adds
Evelyn, and it is a strange comment for so sensible a man,
" did not like him the worse for such a notable indication
of his vigour." The monarch who made his paulo-post
successor drunk had little difficulty to bring the lord
mayor of London into the same condition ; and the city
potentate and his "cousin the king" had that terrible
"other bottle" together, in which men's reason ordinarily
makes shipwreck, with their dignity. But his majesty, of
blessed memory, was a trifle devout after his drink, and
on the " next morning" he heard anthems in his chapel,
and, by way of devotion, would lean over his own pew and
play with the curls of Lady Castlemaine, who occupied the
next seat to that of " our most religious and gracious king."
When he was pouring the public money into the lap of

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES. 459

that precious lady, lie was leaving his own servants un-
paid; and, on one oooasion, when these could not obtain
their salaries, they carried off their royal master's linen,
and left him without a clean shirt or a table-cloth !

The priests with whom Louis XIV. and Louis XV. used
to transact their religion were wont to excuse all the con-
jugal infidelities of those anointed reprobates by remarking
that they ever treated their consorts with the very greatest
poUteness. The poets of Charles's days went farther, and
extolled his marital affection. Waller, for instance, con-
gratulates the poor queen, that if she were ill, Charles was
by to tend and weep over her : —

" But, that which may relieve our care
Is, that you have a help so near
For all the evil you can prove ;
The kindness of your Eoyal Love.
He that -was never known to mourn
So many kingdoms from him torn.
His tears reserved for you ; more dear.
More prized, than all those kingdoms were !
For when no healing art prevail'd,
When cordials and elixirs fail'd.
On your pale cheek he dropt the shower,
Eevived you like a dying flower."

The iUness referred to was a spotted fever; and here is
Pepys' plain prose on the subject : — "20th October, 1663.
This evening, at my lord's lodgings, Mrs. Sarah, talking
with my wife and I, how the queen do, and how the king
tends her, being so iU. She teUs us that the queen's sick-
ness is the spotted fever; that she was as fuU of the spots
as a leopard, which is very strange that it should be no
more known; but perhaps it is not so; and that the king
do seem to take it much to heart, for that he hath wept
before her; but for all that he hath not missed one night
since she was sick, of supping with my lady Castlemaine ;
which I believe is true; foi; she says that her husband

460 TABLE TEAITS.

hath dressed the suppers every night ; and I confess I saw
him myself coming through the street, dressing up a great
supper to-night, which Sarah also says is for the king and
her, which is a very strange thing." Oh, depth of royal
grief, that required light suppers and light ladies for its
solace !

The Spectator has preserved for us a pleasant story
illustrative both of royal and citizen good-fellowship, in the
reign of Charles II., and in the person of the king and that
of his jolly lord mayor, Sir Kobert Viner. The merry
monarch had been dining with the chief magistrate and
the municipality, at Guildhall, where he had not drunk so
deeply himself but he was aware that the jollity of his
entertainers was beginning to render them rather oblivious
of the respect due to their royal guest. He accordingly,
with a curt farewell, slipped away down to his coach,
which was awaiting him in GuildhaU-yard. But the lord
mayor forthwith pursued the runaway, and overtaking him
in the yard, seized him by the skirts of his coat, and swore
roimdly that he should not go till they "had drank t'other
bottle!" "The airy monarch," says the narrator in the
Spectator, " looked kindly at him over his shoulder, and
with a smile and graceful air (for I saw him at the time,
and do now), repeated this line of the old song : —

" ' And the man that is drunk is as great as a king I'

and immediately turned back, and complied with his land-
lord." This anecdote, however, though it be given on
the authority of an alleged eye-witness, is probably over-
coloured with regard to the conduct of his worship the
mayor. Mr. Peter Cunningham quotes (in his story of
Nell Gwyn) from Henry Sidney's Diary, a letter addressed
to Sidney by his sister the Countess Dowager of Suther-
land, and which refers to the incident of the visit of
Charles to Guildhall. The letter in question was written

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIB TABLES. 461

five years after the mayoralty of Sir Eobert Viner. " The
king had supped with the lord mayor, and the aldermen
on the occasion had drunk the king's health, over and
over, upon their knees, wishing every one hanged and
damned that would not serve him with their lives and
fortunes. But this was not all. As his guards were
drunk, or said to be so, they would not trust his majesty
with so insecure an escort, but attended him themselves
to Whitehall, and, as the lady-writer observes, ' all went
merry out of the king's cellar.' So much was this acces-
sibility of manner in the king acceptable to his people,
that the mayor and his brethren waited next day at White-
hall, to return thanks to the king and duke for the ho-
nour they had done them, and the mayor, confirmed by
this reception, was changed from an iU to a well-afiected
subject."

But as this merry mourner lived, so may he almost be
said to have died. It will be remembered with what dis-
gust Evelyn records the scene at Whitehall, a week before
the king's decease : — " I can never forget," he says, " the
inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all dis-
soluteness, and as it were total neglectfulness of God, it
being Sunday evening, which this day sennight I was wit-
ness of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines,
Portsmouth, Cleveland, Mazarine, &c. ; a French boy
singing love-songs in that glorious gallery ; whilst about
twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons
were at basset, round a large table, a bank of at least two
thousand pounds in gold before them, upon which two
gentlemen who were with me made reflections in astonish-
ment. Six days after, all was in the dust."

There was more meanness, but not more decency, under
James II., but his queen more deeply resented, and that in
public, at dinner, the insults levelled at her. When Mrs.
Sedly, in 1686, was created Countess of Dorchester, the day

462 TABLE TRAITS.

on wMoh the nomination passed the Great Seal, and
indeed on a subsequent occasion, the queen showed how
she was touched by the honours paid to a brazen concubine.
"The queen," says Evelyn, "took it very grievously, so
as for two dinners, standing near her, I observed she
hardly ate one morsel, nor spake one word to the king, or
to any about her ; though at other times she used to be
extremely pleasant, full of discourse and good-humour."
Such is one of the table traits of the time of James II.

There is little to be said of William III., save that he
kept a well-regulated table, and was excessively angry if
he detected any faults in the service. He is described as
being kind, cordial, open, even convivial and jocose. He
would sit at table many hours, and would bear his full
share in festive conversation. Burnet, I think, some-
where intimates, but I cannot recoUect the precise words,
that he was something more than moderately given to
Hollands. As much, indeed, has been said of Queen
Anne. But Anne was inclined to indulge in good living,
and her doctor, Lister, had as many gastronomic pro-
pensities as herself. Lister entered into the minutiae of
the kitchen with the exactness of an apothecary weighing
poison. On the subject of larks, he says, for the benefit
of the queen, and all who love such dainty food, that if
twelve larks do not weigh twelve ounces, they are scarcely
eatable; they are just tolerable if they reach that weight;
but that if they weigh thirteen ounces, they are fat and
excellent ! On such table matters did royal physicians
write, when Anne was queen.

The table of George, Prince Eegent, was splendidly
served. The court language was French, as though the
days of the Normans were come again. But the son of
George III., whether as prince or as king, and despite his
character of being the first gentleman in Europe, was not
naturally refined. He loved to have around him men like

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIE TABLES. 463

Humboldt, who, when his guest, amused him with stories
as broad as they were long. He himself would tell similar
stories, even in the presence of his mother and sisters, and
in spite of a sharp "Fie, George!" and an indignant
working of her fan on the part of Queen Charlotte. When
king, the female society which he assembled at the
Pavilion was very decollete indeed, both as regarded
person and principles, and the appearance of these brilliant
looking and light dressed individuals in the day-time gave
to Brighton an aspect that put Eowland Hill into fits.
There were joyous evenings then at Virginia Water, on
" tea and marrow bones,'' and there was everything there
but refinement. Eefinement, indeed, was not the character-
istic of any one prince of the house. The Duke of Cumber-
land revelled in coarse jests, and was delighted when they
embarrassed the modesty that could not even comprehend
them. The Duke of Cambridge was perhaps the least
ofiensive of the family. He was the professional diner
out of the house ; and in his day very few public dinners
took place without having the advantage of his presence
as president. He was, on such occasions^ punctuality
itself, and could not tolerate being kept waiting. In such
cases, he sometimes wiled away the time by trying over
music with the musical gentlemen whose harmony was to
relieve the toasts and tedium of the evening, but his
impatience sometimes got the better of his politeness and
of his reverence for serious things, and we shall not soon
forget the effect he produced at a " religious public dinner,"
by exclaiming aloud, " Where is the chaplain? d — n him !
Why doesn't he say grace?" Before passing to the next
reign, we may take notice of a fact that is not generally
known, but which nevertheless cannot be disputed. The
coronation banquet of George IV. was one of the most
splendid upon record. But there was a world of "leather
and pruneJJa" about it, in spite of its reputed splendour.

464 TABLE TRAITS.

Thus, for instance, the king's table was one gorgeous
display of gold plate, but the plates and dishes at all the
other tables, one only, I believe, excepted, were composed
of nothing more costly than good, honestpewter. Themetal
was indeed so splendidly burnished that to the eye no
silver highly polished coiild have been more dazzling ;
but the truth remains that the peerage that day dined off
pewter. But the occasion gave value to the material, and
the dishes, in their character of relics of the glory of the
last coronation banquet in Westminster Hall, are as highly
prized, and as reverently preserved, as though they were
composed of materials less strange to Potosi than tin,
antimony, and a trifle of copper.

Court life, in the reign of William IV., was but of a
very sombre aspect. The good old king used to indulge
in giving toasts after dinner, and he made long and some-
what prosy speeches. Of the latter he was particularly,
fond, and he made the then young Prince George of
Cambridge his pupil, by giving the health of his father,
the Duke, and inducing the son to rise and return thanks
for the honour conferred. It was no bad discipline for
one who intended to become a public man. The young
prince became a very fair speaker under the old king's
instructions. William detested politics, and he invariably
fell asleep during the dessert. It would have violated
etiquette to have awoke him; and the queen and her
ladies never thought of rising until the royal eyelids began
again to give symptoms of returning wakefulness. He
was fond of talking, over the wine, of military details, and
was proud of two achievements connected therewith j first,
that he had made Colonel Needham shave off his cherished
whiskers, according to the new regulations ; and that he
had succeeded in having all the Waterloo medals worn
with the king's head outwards. He frequently fell asleep
during these conversations ; and then the guests quietly

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES. 4^5

passed the wine from one to the other, and, as they drank
off their glasses, bowed to or smiled at the sleeping
sovereign the while. In the evening, there generally was
music, during which the Queen Adelaide was as generally
engaged in worsted work. The king usually honoured
some one with an invitation to sit by his side on the sofa.
He then fell asleep again, and the unlucky, honoured in-
dividual, did not dare leave his "coign of 'vantage" until
the king awoke and gave the signal. William was a very
moderate joker, and he loved a joke from others. It is
reported that, when heir presumptive, he once said to a
Secretary of the Admiralty who was at the same dinner

table, "C , when I am king, you shall not be

Admiralty Secretary! Eh, what do you say to that?"
" All that I have to say to that, in such a case, is," said

C , "God save the king!" I have heard it further

said, that William never laughed so loudly as when he was
told of a certain parvenu lady, who, dining at Sir John
Copley's, ventured to express her surprise that there was
" no pilfered water on the table."

The dining-tables of deceased monarchs belong to
history; and, consequently, the limit of this imperfect
record is to be found here. One further illustration, how-
ever, of "household" matters may here be not inaptly
introduced. A few months ago a gentleman, who had
been in his early years the personal friend of the Duke of
Kent, was desirous of sending from Sicily a testimonial
of his respect to the late Duke's daughter, our sovereign
lady the Queen. His grateful remembrance took the
shape of some very rare and choice Sicilian wine, the
proper transmission of which was entrusted to the good
offices of a friend of the donor. This honorary agent pro-
ceeded to the proper office for instructions, and there he
was somewhat surprised at being informed that, as soon as
the duty had been paid upon the wine, the latter would

H H

466 TABLE TEAITS.

be forwarded to the "household." At this strange intima-
tion, the friendly agent wrote to his principal for fresh
instructions, and the principal, who had not the slightest
intention of showing his respect for the memory of a sire
by presenting wine to the " household" of that sire's royal
daughter, at oiice directed the luscious tribute to be
divided among friends who had households of their own,
and who could appreciate the present. The rule, with
regard to offerings like these, was not in former times so
ungraciously severe. When Mrs. Coutts used to send her
pleasant tributary haunches of venison to the Pavilion,
she was not informed that the " household" would conde-
scend to dine upon the venison : on the contrary, a grace-
ful autograph note from the royal recipient not only made
cheerful acknowledgment of the gift, but also gave hearty
promise that it would be thoroughly enjoyed. There is
more independence, perhaps, in the present system, which
discourages all tributes, whatever may be their nature;
but there is something very ungracious in the method of
its application.

Enough, however, of this matter, or we shall have little
time to discuss, even briefly, two other subjects, touching
which I would say something, before we are finally -called
to "supper." The first of these comes under the head of
" Strange Banquets."

STRANGE BANQUETS.

Undeb this title I was half inclined to include the
records of the achievements of those gastronomic heroes,
whose Spirit was something Hke that of the boy's who ate
with two spoons, and cried because he could not swallow
faster. But, from Milo and his entire bull for dinner,
down to Dando and his peck of oysters for supper, there
is a sameness of very gross detail, and perhaps not very
great truth, in all. The rustic who was victor at an eating
match, " by a pig and an apple pie,'' was on a level with
the ancient kings, who were wont to boast that they could
carry more beneath their belts with impunity than any
other men. So the ardour of the two villages contemplat-
ing their respective champions — gluttons employed for the
honour of their several birth-places — and the exultation
of one party at finding its favourite a-head "by two turkeys
and a pound of sausages," gave proof of as much dignity
of humanity as was given in their case by those nations
of old who weighed their kings annually, and had a
general illumination when they found their monarchs
growing fatter.

These illustrations of table manners, if indeed they
deserve to be so called, we leave to the perusal of those
whose devotion is of that cast that they would have
reckoned Baal as a god, for no other reason than the suffi-
cient one given of old, namely, that he ate much meat.
In more modem times, we have had defunct kings who
hh2

468 TABLE TRAITS.

have been supposed capable of consuming as much as Baal
himself, or any of his lively followers; for an illustration
of which fact we must pass over, for a short time, to the
once kingdom of France.

The last banquet prepared by the culinary officers of
Francis I. for that royal personage, was one at which my
readers would not have cared to sit in fellowship with the
king, nor was it one which that monarch himself could be
said to have perfectly enjoyed. He made, indeed, no
remark or complaint, but that was for the natural reason
that he was dead when he presided at it ! How this came
to pass I, will proceed to relate.

On the 1st day of March, 1546, Francis I. died in the
Chateau de Eambouillet. The whole of the following day
his body was in the hands of the surgeon-embalmers,
who vainly exercised their office to render that sweet when
dead which had by no means been so when living. During
sis weeks the corpse was deposited at the neighbouring
Abbey of Haute-BruySre. It was then transported to the
house of the Archbishop of Paris at St. Cloud, where there
was a duplicate " lying in state." The dead king, extended
on a couch of richly embroidered crimson satin, was sur-
rounded by a thickly-wedged mass of priests, who, night
and day, offered up prayers for the repose of his soul. In
the adjacent chamber was the " counterfeit presentment,"
or effigy of the monarch, made " after nature," reclining
on a bed of the most gorgeous description, on and about
which was displayed all that could lend additional solemn
glory to the scene. The waxen effigy, with hands joined,
was decked in a crimson silk shirt, covered by a light blue
tunic powdered with fleurs de lis. The royal mantle, of a
deep violet, lay across the feet ; and near it were the orders,
chains, and other "bravery" worn by Francis in his life-
time. On the head was a violet velvet scull-cap, and
above that the crown. The legs were thrust into boots of

STEANGE BANQUETS. 469

cloth of gold, witli crimson satin soles, — but then they were
not made for -walking in. In the room, and particularly
near the bed, there was a blaze of gold and jewellery, such
as dazzled the sight only to look at it. The upper portion
of the bed was fashioned like a tent. Sentinels guarded
it from without, and priests kept watch with much prayer
within. They were of all grades, from cardinals and
princes of the Church down to bare-footed friars, who
wovild have been more thankful for a scarlet hat than for
a pair of the newest sandals. These were the guests at a
banquet where the king was the highly honoured host.

We are told by old Pierre de Chastel, Bishop of Macon,
that the ordinary etiquette of service was rigorously main-
tained every day, during eleven days, as if the king had
been living and laughing in the midst of them. The royal
dinner-table was laid out at the side of the bed; a cardinal
blessed the viands ; and a gentleman of various quarterings
presented to the unconscious image a full ewer, wherewith
to wash the hands which, folded as they were, seemed like
those of the father of Miss Kilmansegg, to be already
washing themselves with invisible soap in imperceptible
water!

A second gentleman offered to the representative of the
defunct king a vase mantling with wine] and a third
wiped his lips and fingers, as if either could have been
soiled by not coming in contact with the cates and the
goblet ! These functions, and others that may very weU
be passed over, were performed amid a most death-like
silence, and by the fitful light of funereal torches, — the only
dinner lamps in use while the dead king was engaged in
not dining. And such were the clever funeral banquets
presided over by the waxen similitude of a defunct king.
And here it should be my office to pass to other subjects
more immediately connected with Table Traits, but I may
perhaps, be pardoned if I add, that the royal corpse, after

470 TABLE TRAITS.

the copious feeding which its effigy was mocked with, was
raised with incredible pomp, and borne into Paris with an
attendant mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous. It
was preceded by beggars, .nobles, cavaliers, and cooks,
("officiers de bouche,") pages, surgeons, and valets de
chambre, grooms, heralds, and archbishops. The followers
behind the car were of more uniform and exalted rank ;
and when the procession reached Vaug6rard, it was met by
the twenty-four town-criers of Paris, who took imnaediate
precedence of the five hundred beggars. The funeral
service in the cathedral was conducted with similar mag-
nificence ; but what is most singular is the fact, that the
solemn ceremony was no sooner concluded, than it was
recommenced with all gravity, for the benefit of the waxen
effigy that had been served for eleven days with an
" omelette fantastique ! " and more than this, two of the,
sons of the deceased king, having been previously interred,
but with maimed rites, a newly organized procession and
service took place on this occasion, not only for themselves,
but for their effigies also ! There was an ocean of holy
water scattered on these exaggerated dolls; the aspersion,
however, was borne with a calmness worthy of their dig-
nity ! And at these ceremonies the English ambassador,
with other Christian representatives, appeared on horse-
back, each with a prelate mounted also at his side. The
union represented that which ought to exist between church
and state everywhere, but which does not even in the
Duchy of Baden. When the lengthened solemnities had
come to a conclusion, the merry pages, as hungry as they
were joyous, scrambled for sweetmeats, and that was the
last of the feasting or fasting of Francis I.

All this seems barbarous and antique : it is the former
rather than the latter. The custom, with some attendant
exaggerations, is still prevalent in China, where only two
years ago the defunct aunt of the sun and moon, mother

STRANGE BANQUETS. 471

to the reigning monarcli, was feasted witli a solemn parade
of magnificent nonsense, the details of which make those
of the banquet of the deceased Francis look extremely poor
indeed. I believe that the Chinese idea with regard to
their poor dead princess was, that she, or the immortal
part in her, could not possibly take flight upon the celes-
tial dragon waiting to convey her to the pagoda — paradise
of Cathay — ^until this farewell banquet had been given to
her by those who had loved her upon earth.

It is the easiest thing in the world, and perhaps it is the
most natural, to smile superciliously at these customs, and
dismiss them with the definite remark, that they were
heathenish and superstitious. JBut our grandmothers, or
their mothers rather, saw something very like it in
England. In the latter case, it was not the consequence
of a law that ruled in such matters, but a spontaneous act
of a sublimely ridiculous, or a ridiculously sublime, affec-
tion. Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, we are told,
demonstrated her afiection for Congreve in a manner
indicative of absolute insanity. " Common fame reports,"
says Kippis, in the " Biographia Britannica," " that she
had his figure made in wax, talked to it as if it had been
alive, placed it at table with her, took great care to help
it with different sorts of food, had an imaginary sore in its
leg regularly dressed, and, to complete all, consulted phy-
sicians with regard to its health.''

An invitation from the duchess to dinner, to meet her
simulative friend, who could hardly be said to have waxed
wittier after his metempsychosis, would not have been a
lively thing. I am not sure that I would not rather have
been in the place of the Hetman of the Zaparogue Cos-
sacks, who was strangely treated and dieted when he was
elected to the chief command over his own wild hordes.
His followers besmeared (and the fashion is not yet obso-
lete) his face with mud, placed a symbolic baton in his

472 TABLE TEAITS.

hand, and a saUoy-looking crane's feather in his bonnet.
They then gave him a cupful of tar (a process that would
have delighted Bishop Berkeley), and after pitching great-
ness into him in this manner, he was allowed a draught of
mead by way of purifying his palate. When Shakspere
said, " Take physic, pomp," he was little aware of the
custom to that effect among the Zaparogues. It was
sweetened, indeed, by the conclusive draught of mead,
as Berkeley's dissertation on tar-water was wound up by a
sermon on the Trinity; but I think I would have pre-
feri*ed swallowing the tar, with nothing to qualify it but
the title, rather than have sat down to the most sump-
tuous of banquets, between the mad duchess and her wax
lover with an issue in his leg !

William Howitt tells of an old countrywoman whom
he sought to initiate into the simple elements of religion,
and to whom he presented a Testament. When the latter
had been read through, the worthy teacher asked her what
she thought of the solemn record: "Ah, well!" was the grace-
less comment, " it all happened so long ago, and so far off,
that I don't believe a word of it !" Some such witticism may,
perhaps, apply to my stories just told, some of which have
distant scenes for their locality, and others distant periods
for their times of actions. But, in the way of barbarous
banquets, examples may be cited less open to this objection;
and if the far-off Zaparogue chiefs have a cruelly nasty
inauguration into greatness, I do not know if the children
in the Scottish Highlands, to whom the wise women there
administer a mixture of whisky and earth as their first
food, have not a nastier inauguration into life. Having
mentioned Scotland, I may, while on the subject of strange
banquets, show how they cooked and fed in the days of
Edward III. "Nor yet had they," says old Joshua
Barnes, " any cauldrons or pans to dress their meat in ;
for what beasts they found (as they always had good store

STEANGS BANQUETS. 473"

in those northern parts), they would seethe them in their
own (the beasts' !) skins, stretched out bellying on stakes,
in the manner of cauldrons ; and having thus sodden their
meat, they would take out a little plate of metal, which
they used to truss somewhere in or under their saddles,
and laying it on the fire, take forth some oatmeal (which
they carried in Uttle bags behind them for that purpose),
and having kneaded and tempered it with water; spread
that thereon. This being thus baked they used for bread,
to comfort and strengthen their stomachs a little when
they eat flesh."

Stomachs that needed no other comforting than this
must have belonged to men of irresistible arms. They
devoured the bullocks, and afterwards dressed themselves
in the cauldrons. They remind lis of those nomadfe people
of whom the poet asks, —

" Was ever Tartar fierce or cruel
Upon the strength of water-gruel 1
But who shall stand his rage and force.
If first he rides, then eats his horse !"

And this metrical allusion to ancient banquets, and
characteristic prowess connected with them, recals to my
memory the singular story touching the strangest of facts,
which has been told in choice verse by Ludwig Uhland.
The German poet, in narrating it, has condemned himself
to execute a sort of double hornpipe in fetters, having set
himself the task to introduce one word, the subject of his
poem, into every stanza of his rhymed romance. "Done
into Enghsh," the legend runs thus : —

THE CASTELLAN OP COTJCY, OR THE HEAET.

" How deeply young De Coucy sigh'd,
How sad the feeling that came o'er him.
And smote his heart, when first he saw
The Lady of Fayal before him !

474 TABLE TEAITS.

" How suddenly his song assumed
The strain of love's impassiou'd fire !
How every measure clearly told
His heart vibrated with his lyre !

" But vain the sweetness of his song,
In am'rous cadence softly dying !
No hope had he to move the heart
Of her who heeded not his sighing !

" For even, when beyond his wont
He fell on some inspirM strain,
The wedded lady's heart scarce moved, —
It warm'd but to be cold again.

" Then was the Castellan resolved.
The cross upon his cuirass'd breast,
'Mid toils in Palestine to seek
The tumults of his heart to rest.

" And there, in many a hot aflfray,
Where perils threat, and dangers thicken.
He stands till, — 'spite his coat of mail.
His noble heart with death is stricken.

" ' Oh ! hear'st thou me, my page 1 ' he cried,
'When this fond heart has ceased its beating.
To the fair Lady of Fayal
Bear it, with De Coucy's greeting.' ,

" In cold and consecrated earth
The hero's corpse at length reposes ;
But o'er his heart, his broken heart,
Not so the tomb its portal closes.

" The heart within a golden urn
Was laid ; the page received the treasure,
And quickly sped him o'er the main,.
To do his noble master's pleasure.

" Now whirlwinds tear, and waters dash,
Now lightnings rend, and masts are falling;
All hearts on board are struck with awe,
One heart alone's beyond appalling !

" Now beams the golden sun again ;
Now, France upon the bow's appearing ;
All hearts on board with joy are cheer'd ;
One heart alone 's beyond all cheering 4

STEANUE BANQUETS. 475

" And soon, througli Fayal's frowning wood.

The page and heart their way are making.

When winding sounds the lusty horn,

With hunters' cries the stillness breaking.
" I'hen from the thicket bounds a stag.

Through his heart an arrow flying,

Checks his coarse, and strikes him dead,—

At the page's feet lie's lying.
" And now the Eitter of Fayal,

Who first the gallant stag had wounded.

Gallops up with hunting train.

Who soon the gentle page surrounded.
" The golden urn had quickly fall'n

To the Hitter's knaves a welcome booty.

Had not the boy stepp'd back a pace,

And told them of his mournful duty.
" ' Heart of a knightly Troubadour,

Here is a warrior's heart, I say, —

The Castellan of Coucy 's heart ;

Let pass this heart its peaceful way !
" ' Dying, my gallant master cried,

When this heart has ceased its beating.

To the fair Lady of Fayal

Bear it, with De Couc/s greeting.'
" ' That dame I know full passing well ! '

Shouted the knight in deadly passion.

As from the trembling page he tore

The urn, in fierce uncourteous passion.
" And with it, grasp'd beneath his cloak.

Homeward sped the savage Ritter ;

The heart close press'd upon his breast,

Fill'd it with thoughts of vengeance bitter.
" Scarce at his castle-gate arrived.

His madden'd thoughts intent on treason,

Than straight his frighted cooks are charged

The heart with condiments to season.
" 'Tis done ! and richly strewn with flow'rs.

And lain on golden dish withal,

'Tis placed before the Knight and Dame,

When seated in their banquet-hall.

476 TABLE TRAITS.

" The Knight upon the Lady tended,
Speaking in terms of feign'd delight —
' Of all the produce of my chase,
Thia heart la yours, fair dame, by right !'

" But scarcely had the Lady tasted
Of the dainty placed before her,
When impulse, strong and^trange, to weep,
Irresistibly came o'er her.

" On marking which the Eitter cried.
With wild and savage laugh unholy,
' Do pigeons' hearts, my faithful Dame,
GIyc tendency to melancholy 1

" ' Then how much more, 0 Lady mine,
Must fare like this such passion raise —
The Castellan of Coucy's heart,
Whose lyre was wont to sound thy praise ?'

" And when the Knight, with stern reproof.
Had ceased thus sneering to upbraid, he
Stood ; while hand on heart too, thus
With solemn action spoke the Lady : —

" ' Thou'st done me foulest wrong to-day 1
Ne'er false was I, not e'en in thought.
Till this poor heart I touoh'd but now.
Within my own mutation wrought.

" ' The youthful Poet's passion, told
With sadden'd heart and anxious brow,
I scom'd while yet the Poet lived.
But dead 1 I yield me to it now.

" ' To death devoted, this weak frame.
To which De Coucy's heart hath lent
A brief support, shall never more
Partake of earthly nourishment.

" ' May Heav'n its mercy show to all i

Yes, e'en to thee may Heav'n show it ! '

*****

Such is the story of a heart

That once inspired a youthful Poet."

STRANGE BANQUETS. 477

The above story of the Castellan de Coney is considered
to be one of Uhland's most remarkable poems, as much
from its general sweetness, unhappily lost in translation, as
from the wit with which he continually keeps before the
reader the one word which forms the principal feature in
the little romance. The tale is, however, by no means
new. There are few nations whose story-tellers do not
celebrate a lady who was forced by a jealous husband to
eat the heart of her lover. It is common to England,
Ireland, and Scotland. In France, the story exists nearly
as Uhland has told it. In Germany, it is to be met with
in various forms. In one of these, the lady is shown to
have been more kind and less faithful than the Eitter's
wife of Fayal. But above all it is, as the mad prince says,
" extant, and written in very choice Italian," by the at once
seductive and repulsive Boccaccio. It is one of the least
filthy of a set of stories, told with a beauty of style, a
choice of language, a lightness and a grace, which make
you forget the matter and risk your morals, for the sake
of improving your Italian. In Boccaccio's narrative, the
lady is of course very guilty; and the husband also, of
course, murders the lover iu as brutal and unknightly a
fashion as can well be imagined. Nothing else could be
expected from that unequalled story-teller, (unequalled as
much for the charm of his manner, as for the general
uncleanness of his details,) who but seldom has a good
word to say for woman, or an honest testimony to give of
man. Human nature presented nothing beautiful or
estimable to him ; and yet it is undeniable that he had an
acute perception of beauty and honour. The characters
he describes are scurvy, vicious, heartless, debauched
wretches; but he dresses them up in such dashing
bravery of attire, and endows them with such divinity of
beauty, and he writes of their whereabout with such a
witchery of pen, that his poor, weak, ensnared readers have

478 TABLE TRAITS.

notMng for it but to go on in alternate extremes of
admiring and condemning. To revert to the German
prose story of the Heart, I may say that it is merely a bad
translation from the " Decameron," telling in a very matter-
of-fact way the history of a Lady von Eoussillon, " welches
jhres geliebte Herz zu essen erhalt, und sich den Tod
gibt."

This strange banquet is not to be set down as positively
apocryphal, merely because it has fallen into the possession
of the rhymers and romancers. The old German barons
were rather inclined to a barbarous species of kitchen — ■
something crude and cannibal of character — ^if we may so
far credit the extravagances of legend as to believe that
they are foainded on fact. But we need not go to Germany
and fairy periods for illustmtions of extraordinary banquets.
or individual dieting.

Among eccentric gastronomists, I do not recollect one
more remarkable than Mrs. Jeffreys, the sister of Wilkes.
At Bath, she slept throughout the year beneath an open
window, and the snow sometimes lent her bed an addi-
tional counterpane. She never allowed a fire to be kindled
in this room, the chief adornment of which was a dozen
clocks, no two of which struck the hour at the same
moment. She breakfasted frugally enough on chocolate
and dry toast, but proceeded daily in a sedan chair, with a
bottle of Madeira at her side, to a boarding-house to dine.
She invariably sat between two gentlemen, " men having
more sinew in mind and body than women," and with these
she shared her " London Particular." Warner, in his
"Literary EecoUections," says that some mighty joint that
was especially well-covered with fat, was always prepared for
her. She was served with slices of this fat, which she
swallowed alternately with pieces of chalk, procured for
her especial enjoyment. Neutralizing the subacid of the
fat with the alkaline principle of the chalk, she " amalga-

STRANGE BANQUETS. 479

mated, diluted, and assimilated the delicious compound
with half-a-dozen glasses of her delicious wine." The diet
agreed weU with the old lady, and she maintained that
such a test authorized use.

We may contrast with the lady who loved lumps of

chalk, the people of a less civilized time and place, who

had a weakness for a species of animal food, which is not

to be found written down in the menus of modern dinners.

Keating, in his "Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of

St. Peter's Eiver," gives some curious details, which may be

not inappropriately touched upon here, referring as they

do to a nation of dog-eaters. The custom at first sight

strikes us as rather revolting ; but the animal in question,

to say nothing of our stealthy friend the cat, is eaten every

day in "ragouts,'' that smoke on the boards of the cheap

gargottes of Paris and the banlieux. After all, custom

and prejudice have much to do with the subject. "What

do you do with your dead ?" once asked a member of a

distant Asiatic tribe of a Eoman. "We bury them,"

answered the latter. "Gracious heaven!" exclaimed the

"untutored Indian," with disgust, "what filthy and fiendish

impiety !" " Why so ?" inquired the other. " What do you

and your people with i/our dead?" " We treat them,"

replied the Indian proudly, " with the decent forms that

best become the dead ; we eat them ! " To this day the

nobles of Thibet are honoured after death with a very

valuable and enviable privilege. They are reverentially

offered to a body of hounds, maintained for the especial

purpose of devouring the defunct aristocracy. What

remains at the end of the process is cared for, like the

ashes which were taken of old from beneath the pile on

which a loved corpse had lain. This exclusive honour is

never vouchsafed to the commonalty ; it is the particular

vested right of greatness j and had Hamlet known of it

when he traced great Csesar's clay stopping a bung-hole,

480 TABLE TEAITS.

it would have afforded him another illustration of the base
uses to which mortality may return. Let us return to the
dog-eaters. Mr. Keating shall tell what he saw among
them, in his own words : Siia narret Ulysses.

"As soon as we had taken our seats, the chief (Wanotau)
passed his pipe round; and while we were engaged in
smoking, two of the Indians arose, and uncovered the
large kettles which were standing over the fire. They
emptied their contents into a dozen of wooden dishes
which were placed all round the lodge. These consisted
of buffalo meat boiled with tepsin; also the same vegetable
boiled without the meat, in buffalo grease; and, finally)
the much-esteemed dog-meat — all which were dressed
without salt. In compliance with the established usage
of travellers to taste of everything, we all partook of the
latter, with a mixed feeling of curiosity and reluctance.
Could we have divested ourselves entirely of the pre-
judices of education, we should, doubtless, unhesitatingly
have acknowledged this to be one of the best dishes that
we had ever tasted. It was remarkably fat, — was sweet
and palatable. It had none of that dry, stringy cha-
racter which we had expected to find in it ; and it was
entirely destitute of the strong taste which we had
apprehended it must possess. It was not an unusual
appetite, or the want of meat to compare with it, which
led us to form this favourable opinion of the dog; for
we had on our dish the best meat which our prairies
afford. But so strongly rooted are the prejudices of
education, that though we all unaffectedly admitted the
excellence of this food, yet few of us could be induced to
eat much of it. We were warned by our trading Mends,
that the bones of this animal are treated with great
respect by the doctors. We therefore took great care to
replace them in the dishes; and we are informed that
after such a feast is concluded, the bones are carefully

STBANGE BANQUETS. 481

collected, the flesli scraped off them, and that after being
washed, they are bnrned on the ground ; partly, as it is
said, to testify to the dog-species that in feasting on one
of their number, no disrespect was meant to the species
itself; and partly also from a belief that the bones of
the animal will arise and reproduce another. The meat
of this animal, as we saw it, was thought to resemble that
of the finest Welsh mutton, except that it was of a much
darker colour. Having so far overcome our repugnance
as to taste it, we no longer wonder that the dog should be
considered a dainty dish by those in whom education has
not created a prejudice against this flesh. In China it
is said that fatted pups are frequently sold in the market-
place ; and it appears that an invitation to a feast of dog
meat is the greatest distinction that can be offered to a
stranger by any of the Indian nations east of the Rocky
Mountains. That this is not the case among some of
the nations on the east of those mountains, appears from
the fact that Lewis and Clarke were called in derision by
the Indians of Columbia, 'dog-eaters.'"

It may be readily believed that the food' above spoken
of must be more acceptable to the human appetite than
the snails which are fattened for the public markets in
the meadows about Ulm. Two Edinburgh doctors did
indeed pronounce the prejudice against snails to be absurd,
and they showed the strength of their own convictions by
sitting down to a charmingly prepared little dish of the
particular dainty. The courage of each failed him at the
first taste, but neither liked to confess as much to the
other. They went on playing with their repast, until one
ventured to say in a remarkably faint voice, "Don't you
think, doctor, they are a leetle green?" "D — d green.
Sir! d—d green!" was the hearty confirmatory rejoinder;
" they are d — d green ! take them away I "

But the Australians do not always exhibit this extreme
I I

482 TABLE TEAITS.

nicety. If they cannot, or once could not, eat biscuits,
they have no such delicate scruples about eating babies^
even when those babies are their own. The cannibalism
of the Australians appears to be not so obsolete as those
who wish weU to humanity would fain desire. This is
settled by the testimony of Mr. Westgarth, a member of
the local parliament, and the latest writer who has touched
upon the subject. In his " Victoria, late Austraha Felix,"
he says : — " In their natural state, the aborigines stand
out with a species of rude dignity. The precision and
acuteness of their observant faculties are not to be sur-
passed ; and they exhibit a surprising tact in their various
modes of discovering and securing food. The narrow
compass of their minds is concentrated in a few lines of
vocation, in which, as in the exhibitions of a Blind
Asylum, there are displayed an extraordinary accuracy
and skill. But to these barbaric excellences, must be
added the most degrading, superstitious, and revolting
customs. Civilized nations are still unwilling to believe
that infanticide and cannibahsm are associated with the
customs of any race of human beings, or voluntarily
practised, except in those rare cases of necessity which
have broken down the barriers of nature alike to the
white and the black; but nothing is better affirmed than
that cannibalism is a constant habit with this degraded
race, who alternately revel in the kidney fat of their
slain or captured enemies, and in the entire bodies of
their own friends and relatives. Nor can the infant
claim any security from the mother who bore it, against
some ruthless law, or ptactice, or superstition, that on
frequent occasions consigns the female proportion, and
sometimes both sexes, to destruction. On authentic
testimony, bodies have been greedily devoured even in a
state of obvious and loathsome disease ; and a mother has
been observed deliberately destroying her youngest child.

STRANGE BANQUETS. 483

serving it tip as food, and gathering aronnd her the
remainder of the family to enjoy the imnatural banquet."
It is certainly pleasant to turn from such a spectacle as
this to contemplate the wives of the King of Delhi, who
pass their time in spoiling, but not kUling, their children,
and whose chief amusement, after matters of dress, con-
sists in sitting and cracking nutmegs in presence of the
Great Mogul!

But there are worse things than these which necessity
can render acceptable to the palate. In Australia espe-
cially does nature appear to indulge in strange freaks.
Many of our salt-water fish there live in fresh-water
rivers ; and, indeed, more than one inland river is brackish
if not salt. Yet of salt itself the natives had never tasted,
until the arrival among them of Europeans ; they do not
take kindly to the condiment even to this day. They
prefer their own unadorned cookery • and they would espe-
cially have admired the late Dr. Howard, who published
quarterly his denimciations against the use of salt. In
Australia, the pears axe made of wood, and the stones of
the cherries grow on the outside, and not within. The
aborigines are satisfied with very unsavoury diet. They
have one fashion, however, in common with the self-
appointed leaders of civilization, the French; they eat
frogs. In France it is the pastime of the bourgeois, on a
summer evening, to resort to some pool with a rod and
line, and a piece of red rag or bit of soap for bait, and
there catch the little people who could not agree about
their king by the dozen. In Australia the native ladies,
in their usual scantiness of costume, proceed to the
swamps ; and there, plunging their long arms up to the
shoulders into the mud, they draw up the astonished frogs
by handfiils. When caught they are cooked over a slow
fire of wood-ashes ; the hinder parts only are eaten, as in
France ; and there are worse dishes ' than the fricasee of

Ii2

484: TABLE TRAITS

the edible frog. Indeed, if the Australians devoured
nothing more objectionable, their system of diet would
almost defy reproof But, alas ! I find upon their bills of
fare — grubs, raw and roasted, snakes, lizards, rats, mice,
and weazels. The mussel is deeply declined by some of
the tribes, in consequence of an opinion prevailing that
the fish in question is the especial property of sorcerers,
whose amiable propensity it is to destroy mankind by
means of mussels. If all the world held the same opinion,
I have no doubt of great profit therefrom resulting.

One of our earlier captains who visited Australia
observing a native devouring some indescribable sort of
food, offered him, in exchange for a portion of it, a sound
sea-biscuit. The exchange was effected, and then it be-
came a point of courtesy and honour that each should eat
what he had acquired by the barter. The trial was a
severe one for both parties. The Englishman swallowed
slowly, and with a sickening sense of disgust that cannot
be told, the odious food of the aboriginal ; while the
native, nibbling at the biscuit, appeared to grow more
horror-stricken at each bit which he tried to swallow.
The tears came into his eyes, he grew sick, faint, enraged ;
and at length, dashing the biscuit on the ground, he as
violently seated himself upon it with a bounce that ought
to have driven it to the very centre of the earth. • The
Englishman, in the meantime, had flung away the remnant
of his " piece de resistance," and they remained gazing at
each other, with the inward conviction that, as regarded
food, each had tasted that day that which deserved to be
designated as surjjrisingly beastly.

Keating's Indians are not the only men of North
America who have a delicate fancy for the dog : the
Dacotas are also that way given. Their celebrated " dogi
dance" is indeed a festival but of rare occurrence, but it
is held to show that that highly respectable people would

STHAUGE BANQUETS. 485

eat tte hearts of their enemies -with as little reluctance
as the heart of a dog. And this is the manner of the
feast of "braves;'' they cook the heart and liver of a dog,
cool them in water, and then hang the dainties on a high
pole, around which they assemble as grave and silent as
quakers. The spirit is literally supposed to move them,
and when one is thus influenced, he begins to bark, and
jumps towards the pole. Another follows his example.
The jumping backwards and forwards, and the chorus of
barking become gradually universal, and the solemn con-
cert is then at its height. Every one does his best, ac-
cording as nature has gifted him. The children snap like
French poodles; the girls yelp like pugs; some snarl,
others growl; the women "give tongue" as musically as
the Bramham Park hounds ; and the fathers of the tribe
run through a scale of sounds that would highly astonish
Lablache.

And thus, in the midst of it all, one becomes bolder
than the rest, looks about him grinningly defiant, and
making a run and a leap at the canine dainties suspended
from the pole, he generally touches ground again with a
piece thereof in his teeth ! This good example is also fol-
lowed universally, until the tempting prize is all consumed,
and then there is " a general dance of characters," and the
drama is done. The Dacotas have an esteem for diminu-
tive dogs; and, lest my readers should deem the tribe to be
wholly unacquainted with civilization and its secrets, I
wiU just mention that these Indians not only drink
whisky with as much profusion as it is drunken in godly
Glasgow, but they occasionally administer a little of it to
their dogs, in order to stunt their growth. Such prayers
too as they have, are also marked by a modern and civi-
lized character; for example, they say, "Great Spirit!
Father ! help us to kill our enemies, and give us plenty of
com !" This is the very spirit of much of the prayer put

486 TABLE TRAITS.

up by the dwellers in the regions of enlightenment. And
the spirit, -with its proper motives, is not one to be blamed.
These barbarous Indians do not, at all events, insult their
Great Spirit, by asking him to give peace in their time,
because none other fighteth for them but him. This would
soimd to their ear as though they needed peace, for the
reason that their defence in war was not to be relied upon;
and, if it had slipped into their formulary, they would at
least amend it without" delay.

But this is getting critical, and so to become reminds us
of authors. Now to treat of them, in reference to the
table, is generally speaking to fall upon the discussion of
their "calamities," and the EncyclopBedia of famished
writers would be a very heavy work indeed. We have yet
time, however, before the chapter of " Supper " opens, to
take a cursory glance at a few of the brotherhood of the
brain and quill. It can be but of a few, and of that few
but briefly. " Tanto mecfUo /" says the reader, and I will
not dispute the propriety of the exclamation.

AUTHORS AND THEIR DIETETICS.

It is all very well for Mr. Leigh Hunt to write a poem
on the " Feast of the Poets," and to show us how Apollo
stood " pitching his darts," by way of invitation to the
ethereal banquet. This is all very well in graceful poetry,
but the account is no more to be received, than the new
gospel according to ditto is likely to be by the Lord
Primate and orthodox Christians. It is far more difficult
to tell the matter in plain prose ; for, where there are few
dinners, many authors cannot well dine. It is easier to
tell how they fested than how they fed ; how they died,
choked at last by the newly-baked roll that came too late
to be swallowed, than how they lived daily, — for the daily
life of some would be as impossible of discovery, as the
door of the " Cathedral of Immensities,'' wherein Mr.
Carlyle transacts worship. The soid of the poet, says an
Eastern proverb, passes into the grasshopper, which sings
till it dies of starvation. An apt Illustration, but our
English grasshoppers must not be used for the illustrative
purpose, seeing that they are far too wise to do anything
of the sort. A British grasshopper no more sings tiU. he
dies, than a British swan dies singing : these foolish
habits are left to foreigners and poetry. Let us turn to
the more reliable register of our ever-juvenile friend, Mr.
Sylvanus Urban.

More than a century ago, Mr. Urban, who is the only
original " oldest inhabitant," gave a " Literary Bill of

488 TABLE TEAITS.

Mortality for 1752," showing the casualties among books
as well as among authors. Touching the respective fates
of the former, we find the productions of the year set
down as, " Abortive, 7000 ; still-bom, 3000 ; old age, 0."
Sudden deaths fell upon 320. Three or four thousand
perished by trunk-makers, sky-rockets, pastry-cooks, or
worms; while more than half that number were privily
disposed of. If such were the fortunes of the works,
how desperate must have been the diet of the authors !
So also was their destiny. As a class, they are fixed,
in round numbers, at 3000 ; and a third of these are
registered as dying of lunacy. Some 1200 are entered
as " starved." Seventeen were disposed of by " the
hangman," and fifteen by hardly more respectable persons,
namely themselves t Mad dogs, vipers, and mortification,
swept off a goodly number. Five pastoral poets, who
could not live by the oaten pipe, appropriately died of
" fistula." And, as a contrast to the multitude " starved,"
we find a zero indicating the ascertained quantity of
authors who had perished by the aldermanic malady of
« surfeit."

There is, perhaps, more approximation to truth than
appears at first sight in this jeu d'esprit. It was only in
Pagan days that authors could boast of obesity. They
dined with the tyranni, as Persian poets get their mouths
Stufied with sugar-candy by the Shah Inshah. And yet
Pliny speaks of poets feeding sparingly, ut solent poetce.
Perhaps this was only an exception, like that of Moore,
who smilingly sat down to a broil at home when not dining
with " right houourables ■" or contentedly thanked Heaven
for " salt fish and biscuits" with his mother and sister in
Abbey Street, the day after he had supped with the
ducal viceroy of Ireland, and half the peerage of the
three kingdoms.

Still, in the old times, authors took more liberty with

AUTHORS AND THEIB DIETETICS. 489

their hosts. In Rome they kept more to the proprieties ;
for a nod of the head of the imperial entertainer was
sufficient to make their own fly from their shoulders. In
presence of the Roman emperor of old, an author could only
have declared that the famous invasion of Britain, which
was productive of ship-loads of spoil, in the shape of sea-
sheUs, was a god-like feat. So, at the table of the czar,
all the lyres of Muscovy sing the ode of eternal sameness,
to the effect that the dastardly butchery at Sinope was an
act that made the angels of God jubilant ! The Russian
lyres dare not sing to any other tune. It was not so of
yore. Witness what is told us of Philoxenus, the ode
writer, whose odes, however, are less known than his acts.
He was the author of the wish that he had a crane's neck,
in order to have prolonged enjoyment in swallowing.
This is a poor wish compared with that of Quin, elsewhere
recorded, that he might have a swallow as long as from
here to Botany Bay, and palate aU the way ! He was a
greedy feUow, this same Philoxenus. He accustomed
himself to hold his iTands in the hottest water, and to
gargle his throat with it scalding ; and, by this noble
training, he achieved the noble end of being able to
swallow the hottest things at table, before the other guests
could venture on them. He would have conquered the
most accomplished of our country bumpkins in consuming
hasty-pudding at a fair. His mouth was as though it was
paved, and his feUow-guests used to say of him, that he
was an oven and not a man. He once travelled many
miles to buy fish at Ephesus ; but, when he reached the
market-place, he found it aU bespoke for a wedding
banquet. He was by no means embarrassed ; he went
uninvited to the feast, kissed the bride, sang an epithala-
mium that made the guests roar with ecstasy, and afforded
such delight by his humour, that the bridegroom invited
him to breakfast with him on the morrow. His wit

490

TABLE TRAITS.

had made amends for his devouring all the best dishes.
It is a long way from Philoxenus to Dr. Chalmers
forgetting his repast in the outpouring of his wisdom,
and entering in his journal the expression of his fear that
he had been intolerant in argument. What a contrast,
too, between Philoxenus and Byron, who, when dining
with a half-score of wits at Rogers's, only opened his
mouth to ask for biscuits and soda-water, and not finding
any such articles in the bill of fare, silently dining on
vegetables and vinegar ! The noble poet's fare in Athens
was often of the same modest character ; but we know
what excesses he could commit when his wayward appe-
tite that way prompted, or when he wished to lash his
Pegasus into fury, as, after reading the famous, attack on
his poetry in the Edinburgh Review, when he swallowed
three bottles of claret, and then addressed himself to the
tomahawking of his reviewers and rivals.

Philoxenus, however, had his counterpart in those
abb6s and poets who used, in the hearing of Louis XV., to
praise Madame de Pompadour. He was writing a poem
called " Galatea," in honour of the mistress of Dionysius
of Sicily, when he was once dining with that tyrant.
There were a couple of barbels on the royal board, a
small one near the poet, and a larger near the prince.
As the latter saw Philoxenus put his diminutive barbel
to his ear, he asked him wherefore, and the poet replied that
he was asking news of Nereus, but that he thought the fish
he held had been caught too young to give him any. " I
think," said Philoxenus, " that the old fish near your
sacredness would better suit my purpose." This joke has
descended to Joe Miller, in whose collection it is to be
found in a modified form. But the story is altogether
less neat than the one told of Dominic, the famous
Italian harlequin and farce writer. He was standing in
presence of Louia XIV, at dinner, when the Grand

AUTHORS AUD THEIR DIETETICS. 491

Monarque observed that his eyes were fixed on a dish of
partridges. " Take that dish to Dominic," said the king.
" What !" exclaimed the farceur, " partridges and all !
" Well," said the monarch, smiling with gravity, " yes,
partridges and all ! " This reminds me of another anec-
dote, the hero of ■which is the Abb6 MoraUet, whom Miss
Edgeworth in her " Ormond " praises so highly, and
praises so justly. But Morallet, if he 'loved good deeds,
loved not less good dinners, and he shone in both. His
talents as a writer, and his virtues as a man, to say
nothing of his appetite, made him especially welcome at
the hospitable table of Monsieur Ansu. The abb! had
learned to carve expressly that he might appropriate to him-
self his favourite portions, — a singular instance of selfishness
in a man who was selfish in nothing else. It was on one of
these occasions that a magnificent pheasant excited the
admiration of the guests, and of the abb6 in particular,
who nevertheless sighed to think that it had not been
placed close to him. Some dexterity was required so to
carve it, that each of the guests might partake of the
oriental bird; and the mistress of the house, remembering
the abbS's skiU as a carver, directed an attendant to pass
the pheasant to M. I'Abbe de Morallet. "What!"
exclaimed the latter, " the whole of it ? how very kind ! "
" The whole of it V repeated the lady ; " I have no objec-
tion, if these ladies and gentlemen are wiUing to siurender
their rights to you." The entire company gave consent,
by reiterating the words, " the whole of it !" and the man,
who might have gained the Monthyon prize for virtue,
really achieved a piece of gluttony which hardly confers
honour on a hungry clown at a fair.

La Fontaine at table was seen in a better light than
the Abb6 Morallet. A fermier-general once invited him
to a dinner of ceremony, in the persuasion that an author
who excited such general admiration would create endless

492 *ABLE TEAITS.

delight for the select company, to entertain whom he had
been invited, La Fontaine knew it well, during the whole
repast ate in silence, and immediately rose, to the conster-
nation of the convives, to take his departure. He was
going, he said, to the Academy. The master of the house
represented to him that it was by far too early, and that
he would find none of the members assembled. " I know
that," said the fabulist, with his quiet smile and courteous
bow; " I know that, but I will go a long way round." If
this seemed a trifle uncourteous — and it was so more in
seeming than reality — it was not so much so as in the case
of Byron, who used to invite a company to dinner, and
then leave them to themselves to enjoy their repast.
Noble hosts of the past century used to do something like
this when they gave masquerades. Fashion compelled
them to adopt a species of amusement which they detested;
but they vindicated personal liberty nevertheless, for when
their rooms were at their fullest, the noble host, quietly
leaving his guest to the care of his wife, would slip away
to some neighbouring coffee-house, and over a cool piat of
claret enjoy the calm which was not to be had at home.
The late Duke of Norfolk used habitually to dine at one
of the houses in Covent Garden, out of pure liking to it.
He was accustomed to order dinner for five, and to duly
eat what he had deliberately ordered; but, as he one day
detected a waiter watching him in his gastronomic process,
he angrily ordered his bill, and never entered the house
again.

It was a common practice with Haydn, like his Grace of
Norfolk, to order a dinner for five or six, and then eat the
whole himself. He once ordered such a dinner to bei ready
by a stated hour, at which time he alone appeared, and
ordered the repast to be served. " But where is the com-
pany?" respectfully inquired the head' waiter. "Oh!"
exclaimed Haydn, "/ am de gompany!" But if he ate

AUTHOES AND THEIR DIETETICS. 493

all, he also paid for all. Moore and Bowles, in their visits
together to Bath, used sometimes to dine at the White Hart,
where, as Moore records, he paid his share of the dinner
and pint of Madeira, and then Bowles magnificently "stood"
a bottle of claret, at dessert. And a pleasant dinner the
two opposite, yet able, poets, made of it ; — far more plea-
sant than Coleridge's dinner with a party at Eeynolds's,
when he bowled down the glasses Hke nine-pins, because
they were too small to drink from copiously !

The name of Coleridge reminds me of Dufresny, an
author of the time of Louis XIV., who was full of sentiment
and majestic sounds, but who was content to live at the
cost of other people, and who never achieved anything like
an independence for himself. After the death of his royal
patron, he was one day dining with the Eegent Duke of
Orleans, who expressed a wish to provide for him. Caprice
inspired the author to say, "Your royal highness had
better leave me poor, as I am, as a monument of the con-
dition of France before the regency." He was not dis-
pleased at having his petition refused. A guest at his side
did indeed remark, by way of encouragement, that "poverty
was no vice." " No," answered Dufresny, sharply, " but
it is something very much worse.'' In act and spirit he
was not unlike a prince of wits and punsters among our-
selves, who used to set up bottles of champagne ou his
little lawn and bowl them down for nine pins ; and who,
of course, left his wife and children pensioners on the
charity of the state and the people.

I have spoken of La Fontaine ; he was as absent at table
as poor Lord Dudley and Ward, whose first aberrations so
alarmed Queen Adelaide. La Fontaine was also like Dean
Ogle, who, at a friend's table, always thought himself at
his own, and if the dinner were indifferent, he would make
an apology to the guests, and promise them better treatment
next time. So La Fontaine was one day at the table of

494 TABLE TBAITS.

Despreaux; tlie conversation turned upon St. Augustin,
and after much serious discourse upon tliat Christian
teacher, La Fontaine, who had till then been perfectly
silent, turned to his neighbour, the Abb6 Boileau, one of
the most pious men of his day, and asked him " if he
thought that St. Augustin had as much wit as Eabelais?"
The priest blushed scarlet, and then contented himself with
remarking, " M. de la Fontaine, you have got on one of
your stockings the wrong side out j" — which was the fact.

The poet's query to the priest was no doubt as starliling
as that put by the son of a renowned reverend joker to
the then Lord Primate. The anxious parent had informed
his somewhat "fast" offspring, that as the archbishop was
to dine with him that day, it would be desirable that the
young gentleman should eschew sporting subjects, and if
he spoke at all, speak only on serious subjects. Accordingly,
at dessert, during a moment of silence, the obedient chUd,
looking gravely at bis grace, asked him " if he could teU
him what sort of condition Nebuchadnezzar was in, when
he was taken up from grass ?" The Lord Primate readily
rephed that he should be able to answer the question by
the time he who had made it had found out the name of
the man whom Samson ordered to tie the torches to the
foxes' tails, before they were sent in to destroy the corn of
the Philistines !

Moore loved to dine with the great; but there have
been many authors who could not appreciate the supposed
advantages of such distinction. Lainez was one of these,
and there were but few of his countrymen who resembled
him. One day the Duke of Orleans met him in the park
at Fontainebleau, and did him the honour of inviting him
to dinner. "It is really quite impossible," said Lainez;
"I am engaged to dine at a tavern with half-a-dozen joUy
companions; and what opinion would your royal highness
have of me if I were to break my word?" Lainez was iiot

AUTHORS AND THEIR DIKTETICS. 495

like Madame de Sevign6, who, after having been asked to
dance by Louis XIV., declared in her delight that he was
the greatest monarch in the world. Bussi, who laughed
at her absurd enthusiasm, affirms that the fair authoress
of the famous " Letters " was so excited at the supper after
the dance, that it was with difficulty she could refrain from
shrieking out " Vive le Eoi ! "

Had the famous "petit plre Andrg" kept down his
impulses as successfiilly as Madame de Sevigne did at the
supper, where, after all, she did not exclaim, " Vive le Eoi,"
it would have been more to his credit, and less to our
amusement. The good father, hke a better man, St. Vin-
cent de Paul, was excessively fond of cards, but he did not
cheat, like the saint, for the sake of winning for the poor.
He had been playing at piquet, and in one game had won
a considerable sum by the lucky intervention of a fourth
king. He was in such ecstasy at his luck, that he declared
at supper he would introduce his lucky fourth king into
, his next day's sermon. Bets were laid in consequence of
this declaration, and the whole company were present when
the discourse was preached. The promise made at the
supper was kept in the sermon, though something pro-
fanely : " My brethren," said the abbS, " there arrived one
king, two kings, three kings; but what were they? — and
where should I have been without the fourth king, who
saved me, and has benefited you? That fourth ting was
He who lay in the manger, and whom the three royal magi
came but to worship!" At the dinner which followed, the
author of the sermon was more eulogised than if he had
been as grand as Bourdaloue, as touching as Massillon,
or as winning as Fenelon.

There was more wit in a cur6 of Basse Bretagne, who
was the author of his diocesan's pastorals, and who hap-
pened to hold invitations to dinners for the consecutive
days of the week. He could not take advantage of them

496 JABLB TRAITS.

and perform his duty too, but he hit on a method of
accomplishing his desire. He gave out at church, an inti-
mation to this effect : — " In order to avoid confusion, my
brethren, I have to announce that to-morrow, Monday, I
will receive at confession, the liars only; on Tuesday, the
misers; on Wednesday, the slanderers; on Thursday, the
thieves; Friday, the libertines; and Saturday, the women
of evil life." It need not be said that the priest was left
during that week to enjoy himself without let or hindrance.
And it was at such joyous dinners as he was in the habit
of attending that most of the sermons, with startling pas-
sages in them, like those of Father Andr6, were devised.
Thus, the Cordelier Maillard, the author of various pious
works, at a dinner of counsellors, announced his intention
of preaching against the counsellors' ladies, — that is,
against their wives, or such of them that wore embroidery.
And well he kept his word, as the following choice flowers
from the bouquet of his pulpit oratory will show. " You
say," he exclaimed to the ladies in question, " that you are
clad according to your conditions; all the devils in heU
fly away with your conditions, and you too, my ladies!
You will say to me, perhaps. Our husbands do not give us
this gorgeous apparel, we earn it by the labours of our
bodies. Thirty thousand devils fly away with the labours
of your bodies, and you too, my ladies ! " And, after
diatribes like these against the ladies in question, the
Cordeher would dine with their lords, and dine sump-
tuously too. The dinners of the counsellors of those days
were not like the Spanish dinner to which an author was
invited, and which consisted of capon and wine, two excel-
lent ingredients, but unfortunately, as at the banquet cele-
brated by Swift, where there was nothing warm but the
ice, and nothing sweet but the vinegar, so here the capon
was cold and the wine was hot. Whereupon, the literary
guest dips the leg of the capon into the flask of wine, and

AUTHORS AND THEIR DIETETICS. 497

being asked by his host wherefore he did so, replied, "I am
warming the capon in the wine, and cooling the wine with
the capon."

The host was not such a judge of wine, apparently, as
the archbishops of Salzbourg, who used not indeed to write
books, nor indeed read them, but who used to entertain
those who did, and then preach against literary vanity
from those double-balcony pulpits which some of my
readers may recollect in the cathedral of the town where
Paracelsus was wont to discourse like Solon, and to drink
like Silenus; and before whose tomb I have seen votaries,
imploring his aid against maladies, or thanking him for
having averted them ! It is said of one of these prince
primates that when, on the occasion of his death, the
municipal officers went to place the seals on his property,
they found the library sealed up exactly as it had been
done many years before at the time of the decease of his
predecessor. Such, however, was not the case with the»
wine-ceUars. What the archiepiscopal wine is at Salzbourg,
I do not know, but if it be half as good as that drank by
the monks of Molk, on the Danube, why the archbishops
may stand excused. Besides, they only drank it during
their leisure hoius, — of which, as Hayne remarks, arch-
bishops have generally four and twenty daily.

But to return nearer home, and to our own authors : —
Dr. Ame may be reckoned among these, and it is of him,
I think, that a pleasant story is told, showing how he
wittily procured a dinner in an emergency, which certainly
did not promise to allow such a consummation. The
doctor was with a party of composers and musicians in a
provincial town, where a musical festival was being cele-
brated, and at which they were prominent performers.
They proceeded to an inn to dine ; they were accommo-
dated with a room, but were told that every eatable thing
in the house was abeady engaged. All despaired in their

K K

498 TABLE TEAITS.

hunger, save the " Mus. Doc." who, cutting off two or
three ends of catgut, went out upon the stairs, and observ-
ing a waiter carrying a joint to a company in an adjacent
room, contrived to drop the bits of catgut on the meat,
while he addressed two or three questions to the waiter.
He then returned to his companions, to whom he intimated
that dinner would soon be ready. They smiled grimly at
what they thought was a sorry joke, and soon after, some
confusion being heard in the room to which the joint
which he had ornamented had been conveyed, he reiterated
the assurance that dinner was coming, and thereupon he
left the room. On the stairs he encountered the waiter
bearing away the joint, with a look of disgust in his face.
" Whither so fast, friend, with that haunch of mutton 1 "
was his query. " I am taking it back to the kitchen. Sir;
the gentlemen cannot touch it. Only look. Sir," said
William, with his nose in the direction of the bits of cat-
#gut; "it's enough to turn one's stomach ! " "Wilham,"
said Arne gravely, " fiddlers have very strong stomachs ;
bring the mutton to our room." The thing was done,
the haunch was eaten, the hungry guests were delighted,
but William had ever afterwards a contempt for musical
people; he classed them with those barbarians whom he
had heard the company speak of where he waited, who not
only ate grubs, but declared that they liked them.

Martial was often as hardly put to it to secure a dinner
as any of the authors I have hitherto named. He was
fond of a ffood dinner, ut solent poetce; and he knew
nothing better than a hare, followed by a dish of thrushes.
The thrush appears to have been a favourite bird in the
estimation of the poets. The latter may have loved to
hear them sing, but they loved them better in a pie.
Homer wrote a poem on the thrush ; and Horace has said,
in a line, as much in its favour as the Chian could have
said in his long and lost poem^ — "nil melius turdo."

AUTHOES AND THEIR DIETETICS. 499

Martial was, at all events, a better fed and better weighted
man than the poet Philetas of Cos, who was so thin that he
walked abroad with leaden balls to his feet, in order that he
might not be carried away by the wind. The poet Arche-
stratus, when he was captured by the enemy, was put in a
pair of scales, and was found of the weight of an obolus.
Perhaps this was the value of his poetry ! It was the value
of nearly aU. that was written by a gastronomic authoress
in France; I allude to Madame de Genlis, who boasts in
her Memoirs, that having been courteously received by a
certain German, she returned the courtesy by teaching
him how to cook seven diflferent dishes after the French
fashion.

The authors of France have exhibited much caprice in
their gastronomic practice; often professing in one direc-
tion, and acting in its opposite. Thus Lamartine was a
vegetarian until he entered his teens. He remains so in
opinion, but he does violence to his taste, and eats good^
dinners for the sake of conforming to the rules of society !
This course in ,an author, who is for the moment rigidly
Republican when all the world around him is Monarchical,
is singular enough. Lamartine's vegetarian taste was
fostered by his mother, who took him when a child to
the shambles, and disgusted him with the sight of butchers
in activity on slaughtering days. He for a long time led
about a pet lamb by a ribbon, and went into strong fits
at a hint from his mother's cook, that it was time to turn
the said pet into useful purposes, and make iendrons
d'agneau of him. Lamartine would no more have thought
of eating his lamb, than Emily Norton would have dreamed
of breakfasting on coUops cut from her dear white doe of
Rylston. The poet stiU maintains, that it is cruel and
sinful to kill one animal in order that another may dine ;
but, with a sigh for the victim, he can eat heartily of what
is killed, and even put his fork into the breast of lamb
kk2

500 TABLE TRAITS.

without compunction, — but all for conformity ! He knows
that if he were to confine himself to turnips, he should
enjoy better health and have a longer tenure of lifej but
then he thinks of the usages of society, sacrifices himself
to custom, and gets an indigestion upon truffled turkey.

Moore, in his early days in London, iised to dine some-
where in Marylebone with French refugee priests, for
something less than a shilling. Dr. Johnson dined still
cheaper, at the "Pine Apple," in New-street, Covent Gar-
den— namely, for eightpence. They who drank wine
paid fourpence more for the luxury, but the lexicographer
seldom took wine at his own expense ; and sixpenny-worth
of meat, one of bread, and a penny for the waiter, sufficed
to purchase viands and comfort for the author of the
'•' Vanity of Human Wishes.'' Boyce the versifier was of
quite another kidney; when he lay in bed, not only
starving, but stark naked, a compassionate Mend gave
him half-a-guinea, which he spent in truffles and mush- -
rooms, eating the same in bed under the blankets. There
was something atrociously sublime about Boyce. Famine
had pretty well done for him, when some one sent him a
slice of roast-beef, but Boyce refused to eat it, because
there was no catchup to render it palatable.

It must have been a,' sight of gastronomic pleasure to
have seen Wilkes and Johnson together over a fillet of
veal, with abundance of butter, gravy, stuffing, and a
squeeze of lemon. The philosopher and the patriot were
then on a level with other hungry and appreciating men.
Shallow with his short-legged hen, and Sir Eoger de
Coverley over hasty-pudding, are myths ; not so Pope with
stewed regicide lampreys, Charles Lamb before roast pig,
or Lord Eldon next to liver and bacon, or Theodore Hook
bending to vulgar pea-soup. These were rich realities,
and the principal performers in them had not the slightest
idea of affecting refinement upon such subjects. Goldsmith,

ADTHOES AND THEIR DIETETICS. 501

vrhen he could get it, had a weakness for haunch of
venison; and Dr. Young was so struck with a broiled
bladebone on which Pope regaled him, that he concluded
it was a foreign dish, and anxiously inquired how it was
prepared. Ben Jonson takes his place among the lovers
of mutton, while Herrick wandering dinnerless about
Westminster, Nahum Tate enduring sanctuary and star-
vation in the Mint, Savage wantonly incurring hunger,
and Otway strangled by it, introduce us to authors with
whom " dining with Duke Humphrey," was so frequent a
process, that each shadowy meal was but as a station
towards death.

When Goldsmith " tramped " it in Italy, his flute ceased
to be his bread-winner as it had been in France ; the
fellow-countrymen of Palestrina were deaf to "Barbara
Allen," pierced from memory through the vents of an Irish
reed. Goldsmith, therefore, dropped his flute, and took up
philosophy; not as a dignity; he played it as he had done
his flute, for bread and a pillow. ' He knocked at the gate
of a college instead of at the door of a cottage, made his
bow, gave out a thesis, supported it in a Latin which must
have set on edge the teeth of his hearers, and, having car-
ried his exhibition to a successful end, was awarded the
trifling and customary honorarium, with which he pur-
chased bread and strength for the morrow. No saint in
the howling wilderness lived a harder life than Goldsmith
during his struggling years in London ; the table traits,
even of his days of triumph, were sometimes coloured un-
pleasingly. I am not sure if Goldsmith was present at
the supper at Sir Joshua's, when Miss Reynolds, after the
repast, was called upon as usual to give a toast, and not
readily remembering one, was asked to give the ugliest
man of her acquaintance, and thereon she gave " Dr. Gold-
smith ;" the name was no sooner uttered than Mrs. Chol-
mondeley rushed across the room, and shook hands with

502 TABLE TEAITS.

Reynolds's sister, by way of approval. What a sample of
the manners of the day, and how characteristic the remark
of Johnson, who was present, and whose wit, at his friend's
expense, was rewarded by a roar, that " thus the ancients,
on the commencement of their friendships, used to sacri-
fice a beasfbetween them !" Cuzzoni, when found famish-
ing, spent the guinea given her in charity, in a bottle of
tokay and a penny roll. So Goldsmith, according to Mrs.
Thrale^was "drinking himself drunk with Madeira," with
the guinea sent to rescue him from hunger by Johnson.
But let us be just to poor Oliver. If he squandered the
eleemosynary guinea of a friend, he refused roast beef and
daily pay, offered him by Parson Scott, Lord Sandwich's
chaplain, if he would write against his conscience, and in
support of government ; and he could be generous in his
turn to friends who needed the exercise of generosity.
When Goldsmith went intp the suburban gardens of Lon-
don to enjoy his "shoemakers' holiday,'' he generally had
Peter Barlow with him. Now Peter's utmost limit of
profligacy was the sum of fifteen-pence for his dinner ; his
share would sometimes amount to five shillings, but Gold-
smith always magnificently paid the difference. Perhaps
there are few of the sons of song who dined so beggarly,
and achieved such richness of fame, as Butler, Otway,
Goldsmith, Chatterton, and, in a less degree of reputation,
but not of suffering, poor Gerald Griffin, who wrestled
with starvation till he began to despair. Chatterton did
despair, as he sat without food, hope, and humility; and
we know what came of it. Butler, the sturdy son of a
Worcestershire farmer, after he had astonished his con-
temporaries by his " Hudibras," lived known but to a few,
and upon the charity or at the tables of them. But he
did not, like the heartless though sorely-tried Savage,
slander the good-natured friends at whose tables he drew
the support of his life. As for Otway, whether he perished

AUTHORS AND THEIR DIETETICS. 503

of suffocation by the roll which he devoured too greedily
after long fasting, or whether he died of the cold draught
of water, drank when he was overheated, it is certain that
he died in extreme penury at the " Bull " on Tower Hill,
— ^the coarse frequenters of the low public-house were in
noisy revelry round their tables, while the body of the dead
poet lay, awaiting the grave, in the room adjacent.

The table life of Peter Pindar was a far more joyous one
than that of much greater poets. At Truro he was noted
for his frugal fare, and he never departed from the ob-
servance of frugality of living throughout his career. He
would sometimes, we are told, when visiting country
patients, and when he happened tO be detained, go into the
kitchen and cook his own beefsteak, in order to show a
country cook how a steak was done in London, — the only
place, he said, where it was properly cooked. He laughed
at the faculty as he did at the king, and set the whole pro-
fession mad by sanctioning the plentiful use of water,
declaring that physic was an uncertain thing, and main-
taining that in most cases all that was required on the
doctor's part was " to watch nature, and when she was
going right, to give her a shove behind." He was accus-
tomed to analyse the drugs which he had prescribed for
his patients, before he would allow the latter to swallow
them, and he gave a decided county bias against pork by
remarking of a certain apothecary that he was too fond of
bleeding the patients who resorted to him, and too proud
of his large breed of pigs. The inference was certainly
not in favour of pork. Peter's practical jokes in connexion
with the table were no jokes to the chief object of them.
Thus, when a pompous Cornish meniber of parliament
issued invitations for as pompous a dinner to personages of
correspondmg pomposity, "Peter," recollecting that the
senator had an aunt who was a laundress, sent her an
invitation in her nephew's name, and the old lady, happy

504 TABLE TRAITS.

and proud, excited universal surprise, and very particular
horror in the bosom of the parliament-man, by making
her appearance in the august and hungry assembly, who
welcomed her about as warmly as if she had been a " boule
asphyxiante " of the new French artillery practice.

It is going a long way back to ascend from " Pindar" to
Tasso, but both poets loved roasted chestnuts, — and there
is the affinity. Peter never drank any thing but old rum ;
a wine glass, (never beyond a wine glass and a half,)
served him for a day, after a dinner of the plainest kind.
The doctor eschewed wine altogether, at least in his latter
days, as generating acidity. Tasso, however, unlike our
satirical friend, was a wine-bibber. During the imprison-
ment which had been the result of his own arrogance, he
wrote to the physician of the Duke of Ferrara, complain-
ing of intestinal pains, of sounds of bells in his ears, of
painful mental images and varying apparitions of inani-
mate things appearing to him, and of his inability to
study. The doctor advised him to apply a cautery to his
leg, abstain from wine, and confine himself to a diet of
broth and gruels. The poet defended the sacredness of
his appetite, and declined to abstain from generous wine ;
but he urged the medico to find a remedy for his ills,
promising to recompense him for his trouble, by making
him immortal in song. At a later period of his life, when
he was the guest of his friend Manco, in his gloomy castle
of Bisaccio, the illustrious pair were seated together, after
dinner, over a dessert of Tasso's favourite chestnuts and
some generous wine ; and there he afirighted his friend by
maintaining that he was constantly attended by a guardian
spirit, who was frequently conversing with him, and in
proof of the same, he invited Manco to listen to their
dialogue. The host replenished his glass and announced
himself ready. Tasso fell into a loud rhapsody of mingled
folly and beauty, occasionally pausing to give his spirit

AUTHORS AND THEIR DIETETICS. 505

an opportunity of speaking j but the remarks of this
agathodeemon were inaudible to all but the ears of the
poet. The imaginary dialogue went on for an hour j and
at the end of it, when Tasso asked Manoo what he thought
of it, Manco, who was the most matter-of-fact man that
ever lived, replied that, for his part, he thought Tasso had
■drunk too much wine and eaten too many chestnuts. And
truly I think so too.

The greatest of authors are given to the strangest of
freaks. Thus one of the most popular of the teachers of
the people presided at a gay tavern supper the night
before the execution of the Mannings. The feast con-
cluded, the party (supplied with brandy and biscuits)
proceeded to the disgusting spectacle, where they occupied
"reserved seats j" and when all was done, the didactic
leader of the revellers and sight-seers, thought he com-
pensated for his want of taste, by pronouncing as " exe-
crable " the taste of those who, like George Selwyn, could
find pleasure iu an execution. But there are few men so
inconsistent as didactic authors. Pope taught, in poetry,
the excellence of moderation ; but he writes to Congreve
in 1715, that he sits up till two o'clock over burgundy and
champagne j and he adds, " I am become so much of a
rake that I shall be ashamed, in a short time, to b(
thought to do any sort of business." But Pope's table
practice, like Swift's, was not always of the same cha-
racter. The dean, writing to Pope, in the same year that
the latter tells Congreve (a dissolute man at table, by the
way) of his sitting over burgundy and champagne till two
in the morning, speaks of quite another character of life :
"You are to understand that I live in the corner of a vast
unfurnished house. My family consists of a steward, a
groom, a helper in my stable, a footman, and an old maid,
who are all at board wages ; and when I do not dine
abroad, or make an entertainment, — which last is very

506 TABLE TRAITS.

rare, — I eat a mutton pie, and drink half a pint of wine."
Pope's habit of sleeping after dinner did not incline him
to obesity ; and it was a habit that the dean approved.
Swift told Gay that his wine was bad, and that the cl6rgy
did not often call at his house ; an admission in which
Gay detected cause and effect. In the following year to
that last named, Swift wrote a letter to Pope, in which.
I find a paragraph affording a table trait of some interest r
" I remember," he says, " when it grieved your soul to See
me pay a penny more than my club, at an inn, when you
had maintained me three months at bed and board ; for
which, if I had dealt with you in the Smithfield way, it
would have cost me a hundred pounds, for I live worse
here (Dublin) upon more. Did you ever consider that
I am, for life, almost twice as rich as you, and pay no
rent, and drink French wine twice as cheap as you do
port, and have neither coach, chair, nor mother?" Pope
illustrates Bolingbroke's way of living as well as his own
some years later. The reveller till two in the morning, of
the year 1715, is sobered down to the most temperate of
table men, in 1728. "My Lord Bolingbroke's great
temperance and economy are so signal, that the first is
fit for my constitution, and the latter would enable you to
lay up so much money as to buy a bishopric in England.
As to the return of his health and vigour, were you here,
you might inquire of his haymakers. But, as to his
temperance, I can answer that, for one whole day, we have
had nothing for dinner but mutton broth, beans and
bacon, and a barn-door fowl ;" after all, no bad fare either,
for peer or poet ! Swift too, at this period, boasts no
longer of his " French wines.'' His appetite is affected by
the appalling fact, that the national debt amounts to the
unheard-of sum of seven millions sterling ! and thereupon
he says : "I dine alone on half a dish of meat, mis water
with my wine, walk ten miles a-day, and read Baronius."

AUTHOES AND THEIR DIETETICS. /507

Such was the table and daily life of an author who be-
gan to despair of his country ! In 1732, however, the
dean was again full of hope, — we see it in the condition of
his wine matters : " My stint in company," he writes to
Gay, " is a pint at noon, and half as much at night ; but
I often dine at home, like a hermit, and then I drink little
or none at all." Was it that he despaired again, when
alone ; or that he only drank copiously at others' cost?
Of his own cellar arrangements, though, he thus speaks :
" My one hundred pounds will buy me six hogsheads of
wine, which will support me a year, provisce fi-ugis in
annum copia. Horace desired no more ; for I will construe
frugis to be wine. How a man who drank little or none
at home, and seldom saw company to help him to con-
sume the remainder, could contrive to get through six
hogsheads in a year, is a problem that wiU be solved when
the philosophers of Laputa have settled their theories."
Literature is a pleasant thing when its professors have not
to write in order to live. Such was the case in the last
century, with poor De Limiers, who was permitted to
write in periodicals, on the stipulation that he " never
told anybody." It is said of him that he would have been
an exceedingly clever person, if he had not always been
hungry, but that famine spoiled his powers. This was the
bookseller's fault, not his. The same might nearly be said
of poor Gerald Griffin; but he kept his ability warm even
amid cold hunger, and had the courage to write his noble
tragedy " Gisippus" on scraps of paper picked up by him
in wretched coifee-shops, where he used to take a late
breakfast, and cajole himself into the idea that it was
dinner.

When Cervantes, with two friends, were travelling from
Esquivias, famous for its illustrious wines, towards Toledo,
he was overtaken by a " polite student," who added him-
self and his mule to the company of " the crippled sound

508 TABLE TRAITS.

one'' and his friends, and wlio gave honest Miguel much
fair advice touching the malady which was then swiftly
killing him. " This malady is the dropsy," said the stu-
dent with the neck bands that would.no* keep in their
place, — "the dropsy, which aU the water in the world
would not cure, even if it were not salt ; you must drink
by rule, sir, and eat more, and this will cure you better
than any medicine." " Many have told me so," was the
reply of the immortal Miguel, " but I should find it as
impossible to leave off drinking, as if I had been born for
no other purpose. My life is weU-nigh ended, and by the
beatings of my pulse, I think next Sunday, at latest, will
see the close of my career." The great Spaniard was not
very incorrect in his prognostic. I introduce this illus-
trative incident for a double reason ; first, it is " germane
to the matter" in hand, and secondly, it reminds me of a
fact with the notice of which I will conclude this section
of my imperfect narrative: I allude to

THE LIQUOErLOVING LATJEEATES.

It is incontrovertible that, with the exception of two or
three, all our laureates have loved a more pleasant distil-
lation than that from bay-leaves. In the early days, the
" versificatores regis," were rewarded, as all the minstrels
in Teutonic ballads are, with a little money and a full
bowl. The nightingales in kings' cages piped all the
better for their cake being soaked in wine. From the
time of the first patented laureate, Ben Jonson, the rule
has borne much the same character, and permanent thirsti-
ness seems generally to have been seated under the laurel.
Thus, Ben himself was given to joviality, jolly company,
deep drinking, and late hours. His affection for a parti-
cular sort of wine acquired for him the nick-name of the
Canary-bird; and indeed succeeding laureates who, down
to Pye, enjoyed the tierce of Canary, partly owe it to Ben.

AUTHORS AND THEIR DIETETICS. 509

Charles I. added the wine to an increase of pay asked
for by the bard ; and the spontaneous generosity of one
king became a rule for those that followed. The next
laureate, Davenant, a vintner's son, was far more dissolute
in his drinking, for which he did not compensate by being
more excellent in his poetry. The third of the patented
laureates, Dryden, if he loved convivial nights, loved to
spend them as Jonson did, in " noble society." Speaking
of the Roman poets of the Augustan age, he says : —
" They imitated the best way of living, which was, to
pursue an innocent and inoffensive pleasure ; that which
one of the ancients called 'eruditam voluptatem.' We
have, like them, our genial nights, where our discourse is
neither too serious nor too light, but always pleasant, and
for the most part instructive ; the raillery neither too
sharp upon the present, nor too censorious on the absent ;
and the cups only such as will raise the conversation of
the night, without disturbing the business of the morrow."
The genial nights, however, were not always so delightfully
Elysian and aesthetic. When Rochester suspected Dryden
of being the author of the " Essay on Satire," which was
really written by Lord Mulgrave, and which was offensive
to Rochester, the latter took a very unpoetical revenge.
As Dryden was returning from his erudita voluptas at
Wills', and was passing through Rose-street, Covent
Garden, to his house in Gerrard-street, he was waylaid
and severely beaten, by ruffians who were believed to be
in the pay of Rochester. The conversation of that night
certainly must have disturbed the business of the morrow !

And next we come to hasty Shadwell, who may be
summarily dismissed with the remark that he was ad-
dicted to sensual indulgence, and to any company that
promised good wine, and plenty of it. Poor Nahum
Tate, too, is described as "a free and fuddling com-
panion j " but the miserable man had gone through more

510 TABLE TEAITS.

fiery trials than genial nights. Of Eowe, the contrary
may be said. He was the great diner-out of his day ;
always vivacious, dashing, gay, good-humoured, and ha-
bitually generous, whether drunk or sober. He was but
a poor poet, but he was succeeded by one who wrote
worse and drank more — Eusden, of whom Gray writes to
Mason that he " was a person of great hopes in his youth,
though at last he turned out a drunken parson." Gibber
loved the bottle quite as intensely as Eusden did, and he
was a gambler to boot ; but there- were some good points
about Golley, although Pope has so bemauled him. Pos-
terity has used Gibber as his eccentric daughter did when
he went to her fish-stall to remonstrate with her against
bringing disgrace upon his family by her adoption of such
a course : the affectionate Charlotte caught up a stinking
sole, and smacked her sire's face with it ; but Golley
wiped his cheek, went home, and got drunk to prove that
he was a gentleman. With heavy Whitehead we first fall •
in with indisputable respectability. He sipped his port, a
pensioner at Lord Jersey's table, and wrote classical tra-
gedies, for which I heartily forgive him, because they are
deservedly forgotten. His successor, slovenly Warton,
exulted over his college wine with the gobble of a turkey^
cock ; and then came Pye, with his pleasant conviviality
and his warlike strains, which "roared like a sucking
dove," and put to sleep the militia, which it was hoped
they would have aroused. Pye was of the time of
" Pindar, Pye, and Parvus Pybus ; " and it was during his
tenure of of&ce that the tierce of Ganary was discontinued,
and the 271. substituted. With Southey, a dignity was
given to the laureateship, which it had, perhaps, never
before enjoyed; and the poetic mantle fell on worthy
shoulders, when it covered those of the gentle Words-,
worth. Not that Wordsworth never was drunk. The
bard of Eydal Mount was once in his life " full of the

AUTHORS AND THEIR DIETETICS. 511

god ; " but he was drunk with strong enthusiasm too, and
the occasion excused, if it did not sanctify the deed. The
story is well told by De Quincey, and it runs thus : —

"For the first time in his life, Wordsworth became
inebriated at Cambridge. It is but fair to add, that the
first time was also the last time. But perhaps the strangest
part of the story is the occasion of this drunkenness, which
was the celebration of the first visit to the very rooms at
Christ College once occupied by Milton, — intoxication by
way of homage to the most temperate of men, and this
homage offered by one who has turned out himself to the
full as temperate ! Every man, in the mean time, who is
not a churl, must grant a privilege and charter of large
enthusiasm to such an occasion ; and an older man than
Wordsworth, at that era not fuUy nineteen, and a man
even without a poet's blood in his veins, might have leave
to forget his sobriety in such circumstances. Beside which,
after aU, I have heard from Wordsworth's own lips that he
was not too far gone to attend chapel decorously during
the very acme of his elevation ! "

De Quincey has told how pleasant, and cheerful, and
conversational was the tea-time at Wordsworth's table;
and there, no doubt, the poet was far more, so to speak, in
his element than when in the neighbourhood of wine,
whose aid was not needed by him to elevate his conversa-
tion. But Wordsworth, gentle as he was, had nothing in
him of the sqiiire of dames, whom he generally treated
with as much indifference as the present laureate, Tenni-
son, was once said to feel for those very poetical little
mortals, — children. And here I end the record of a few
table traits of the patented laureates, adding no more of
the fourteenth and last, that is, the present vice- Apollo to
the Queen, than that he has said of his own tastes and
locality to enjoy them in, in WiU Waterproof's Lyrical
Monologue, made at the Cock, —

512 TABLE TEAITS.

" 0 plump head waiter at ' The Cock/
To which I most resort,
How goes the time? 'Tis five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port.

" But let it not be such as that
Tou set before chance-comers,
But such whose father-grape grew fat
On Lusitanian summers."

And now all things must have an end; and the end of
pleasure is like the end of life, — weariness, satiety, and
regret; and the end of a weU-spent day is not of that
complexion, for its name should be "supper," without
which, however, a man had better go to bed, than with it
and arise in debt. But, as the moral does not apply to us,
you and I, Eeader, if you wiU venture further with so in-
different a companion, will go hand in hand, before we
finally separate.

SUPPER.

The supper was tte only recognised repast in Rome; if,
indeed, we may call that supper which sometimes took
place at three in the afternoon. It was then rather a
dinner, after which properly educated persons woidd not,
and those who had supped over freely could not, eat again
on the same day. The early supper hour was favoured
by those who intended to remain long at table. "Im-
perat extructos frangere nona toros," says Martial. The
more frugal, but they must also have been the more
hungry, supped, like the Queen of Carthage, at sunset ;
"labente die convivia quserit." All other repasts than
thip had no allotted hour; each person followed inclination
or necessity, and there was no difierence in the jenfaculum,
the prandium, or the merenda, — the breakfast, dinner, or
collation, — save difference of time. Bread, dried fruits,
and perhaps honey, were alone eaten at these simple meals;
whereat too, some, like Marius, drank before supper time,
" the genial hour for drinking." The hosts were, in
earlier ages, cooks as well as entertainers. Patroclus was
famous for his Olla Podrida, and a Roman general received
the Samnite ambassadors in a room where he was boiling
turnips for his supper !

Sunset, however, was the ordinary supper-time amongst
the Romans. " De vespere suo vivere," in Plautus, al-
ludes to this. In the time of Horace, ten o'clock was not
an unusual hour, and men of business supped even later.

L L

514 TABLE TRAITS.

At the period of the decadence of the empire, it was the
fashion to go to the baths at eight, and sup at nine. The
repasts which commenced earlier than this were called
tempestiva, as lasting a longer time. Those which began
by daylight — de die — ^had a dissolute reputation; "ad
amicam de die potare," is a phrase employed in the Asi-
naria to illustrate the great depravity of him to whom it
is applied.

There is no doubt, I think, in spite of what critics say,
that, however it may have been with the Romans, the
Greeks certainly had four repasts every day. There was
the breakfast (aK(^Kancrjua), the dinner (apiorov), the colla-
tion {kairipwfxa), and the chief of all, despite the term for
dinner, the supper (^Ciirvov).

Among the Eomans the Coena adventitia was the name
given to suppers whereat the return of travellers to their
homes was celebrated ; the_ Ccena popularis was simply a
public repast,given to the people by the government; the
terrestris coena was, as Hegio describes it in the Gaptivei,
a supper of herbs, multis oleribus. The Greeks called such
" a bloodless supper." The parasite, in Athenseus, says
that when he is going to a house to supper, he does not
trouble himself to gaze at the architectural beauties of the
mansion, nor the magnificence of the furniture, but at the
smoke of the chimney. If it ascends in a thick column,
he knows there is certainty of good cheer; but if it is a
poor thread of smoke, says he, why then I know that
there is no blood in the supper that is preparing: to
Etivvov a\\' ovS' alfxa e)(£i.

These repasts were gay enough when there was good Chian
wine, unmixed with sea-water, to set the wit going. The
banquets of Lais were probably the most brilliant ever seen
in Greece, for there was abundance of sprightly intellect at
them. It might be said of them, as Sidney Smith says of
what used to be in Paris under the ancient regime, when

SUPPER. 515

" a few women of brilliant talents violated all the common
duties of life, and gave very pleasant little suppers.''

It is a well-ascertained fact that when the Greeks gave
great entertainments, and got tipsy thereat, it was for
pious reasons. They drank deeply in honour of some god.
They not only drank deeply, but progressively so ; their
last cup at parting was the largest, and it went by the
terrible name of the Cup of Necessity. There was a
headache of twenty-anguish power at the bottom of it.
Their pic-nic and conversation suppers were not bad
things. Every guest brought his own rations in a basket ;
but as the rich and the selfish used to shame and tantalise
the poorer guests by their savoury displays, Socrates, that
dreadfully didactic personage, imperious as Beau Nash
in matters of social discipline, insisted that what each
guest brought should be common to all. The result was
less show and more comfort. But I would not have
liked to have supped where Socrates was in the chair,
for, in spite of his talents, he was a horrid bore, watching
what and how each guest ate, and speaking to or at him
whenever his acute eye discovered a rent in the coat of
his good manners. If he sometimes said good things, he
as frequently said sharp ones; and where he was pre-
sident, the guests were simply at school.

It is indeed seldom that the sages are desirable asso-
ciates. " Come and sup with me next Thursday,'' said a
French Amphitryon to a friend. "You shall meet philo-
sophers or literary menj take your choice." " My choice
is soon made," was the reply; "I wiU sup twice with
you." It was so arranged, and the supper with the literati
was incomparably the better banquet of the two.

The supper was the great meal of the Greeks; but

neither at this, nor at any other repast, does Homer ever

make mention of boiled meat. The Greeks, then, were

not like our poor Greenwich pensioners, who, up to the

ll2

516 TABLE TKAITS.

present time, have never been provided with meat cooked
in any other way. The result is that the men themselves
look as if they were half-boiled. But a new order of
things, including ovens and baked joints, has been intro-
duced into the kitchen and refectory of the hospital, and
the ancient mariners will soon show the effects of variety
in diet and cooking, by a healthier and a happier hue on
their solemn and storm-beaten cheeks.

And this matter of boiled meat reminds me of the old
Duke of Grafton, who never ate any thing else at dinner
or supper, (for it was in the days of double meals,) but
boiled mutton. Yet every day the cook was solemnly
summoned to his grace's side, to listen to orders which he
knew by heart, and instructions which wearied while
they vexed his spirits. The duke must have been of the
saddened constitution which would have entitled him to
sup with that nervous Duke of Marlborough, who always
joined with his invitation a request that his guest would
say or do nothing to make him laugh, as his grace could
not bear excitement.

At the supper-table the Eomans did not decline the
flesh of the ass, nor that of the dog ; and they were as fond
of finely fatted snails as the southern Germans are, who
have inherited their taste. Macrobius, describing the
supper given by the epicurean pontiff Lentulus, in honour
of his reception, says that the first course was composed
of sea hedgehogs, oysters, and asparagus. After these
provocatives came a second course, consisting of more
oysters, and various other shell-fish, fat pullets, becca-
ficoes, venison, wild-boar, and sea-nettles, — to digest the
marine hedgehogs, I suppose. The third course assumed
a more civilized aspect, and the guests were only tempted
by fish, fowl, game, and cakes from the Ancona marshes.
There is a supper of Lentulus, as described by Becker.
The supper was given to Gallus, and the account of it is

SUPPER. 517

so little exaggerated as to afford a tolerably correct idea
of what those banquets were. Nine guests, two of them
"gentlemen from Perusia," occupied the triclinium. The
pictures around represented satyrs celebrating the joyous
vintage; the death of the boar; fruit and provision
pieces over the door, and similar designs, calculated to
awaken a relish for the banquet, were suspended between
the elegant branches occupied by living thrushes. The
lowest place in the middle sofa was the seat for the most
honoured guest. As soon as aU were in a reclining
posture, the attendant slaves took off their sandals, and
water in silver basins was carried round by good-looking
youths, and therewith the visitors performed their brief
ablutions. At a nod from the host, two servants depo-
sited the tray bearing the dishes of the first course in
the centre of the table. The chief ornament of this tray,
which was adorned with tortoiseshell, was a .bronze ass,
whose panniers were filled with olives, and on whose
back rode a Silenus, whose pores exuded a sauce which
fell upon the roast breast of a sow that had never fulfilled
a mother's duty, below. Sausages on silver gridirons,
with Syrian plums and pomegranate seeds beneath them
to simulate fire; and dishes, also of silver, containing
various vegetables, sheU-fish, snails, and a reptile or two,
formed the other delicacies of this course. While the
guests addressed themselves thereto, they were supplied
with a beverage composed of wines and honey scien-
tifically commingled. The glory of the first course was,
however, the carved figure of the brooding hen, which
was brought in on a separate small tray. The eggs taken
from beneath her were offered to the guests, who found the
apparent eggs made of dough, on breaking which with the
spoon, a fat figpecker was seen lying in the pepper-seasoned
yolk, and strongly tempting the beholder to eat. This
delicacy, was, of course, readily eaten, and mulsum, the

518 TABLE TRAITS.

mixture of Hymettian honey and Falernian wines, was
copiously drunk to aid digestion. A good deal of wine
was imbibed, and numerous witch stories told (a favourite
supper pastime), between and during the courses, at which
the dishes were more and more elaborate and fantastic.
A vast swine succeeded to a wild boar at the supper of
Lentulus, who affecting to be enraged at his cook for
forgetting, to disembowel the animal before preparing it
for the table, that official feigns to tremble with the
energy of his repentance, and forthwith proceeds to per-
form the office of gutting the animal in presence of
the guests. He plunges his knife into its flanks, when
there immediately issues from the gaping wound string
after string of little sausages. The conclusion of the
supper is thus told : — " The eyes of the guest were suddenly
attracted to the ceiling by a noise overhead; the ceiling
opened, and a large silver hoop, on which were ointment
bottles of silver and alabaster, silver garlands with beauti-
fully chiselled leaves, and circlets and other trifles,
descended upon the table ; and after the dessert, prepared i
by the new baker, whom Lentulus purchased for a
hundred thousand sesterces, had been served up, the party
rose, to meet again in the brilliant saloon, the intervening
moments being spent, by some in sauntering along the
colonnades, and by others in taking a bath."

In the description of the supper given by Siba to cele-
brate the return of Nero to Rome, we find that the slaves,
when they took off the sandals of the guests, supplied them
with others of a lighter description, which were fastened
by crossed ribands. Those who did not come in "dress,"
were furnished with variegated woollen vestments to cover
their togas. Siba's banquet began to the sound of a
hydraulic organ, which, however, was only in place of
our dinner-bell. When the lime-wood tables were duly
covered and flowered, the guests took their places to the

SUPPER. 519

sound of flutes and harps, and said a sort oi grace, by in-
voMng Jupiter; while a modest libation of wine was cast
on the floor in honour of the household gods. The first
course consisted of some remarkably strange dishes, but
the guests reserved their appetite, or provoked it with
pickled radishes, fried gi-asshoppers, and similar cattle.
A master of drinking was then chosen, whose duty it was
to regulate how often the guests should drink ; and the
latter invariably selected the most confirmed toper. We
leave this office to the master of the house, and in well-
regulated families that high official leaves his guests to do
according to their good pleasure. The garlands having
been duly encircled round the brows of Siba's friends, the
trumpets announced the entrance of the second course.
The second course was duly discussed, its extraordinary
dishes thoroughly consumed, and the four cups were
drained to Nero ; being the number of letters in his name ;
and a good deal of jollity began to abound, which was
checked a little by the arrival of a present from the em-
peror, sent to Siba, and which consisted of a silver ske-
leton. As the guests feared to interpret the meaning of
the gift they fell to deeper drinking, and then to singing,
and philosophising; and then resumed their eating; and
when the force of nature could no further go, they called
in the jugglers, and tumblers, and buffoons, and puppets,
and having drawn as much amusement from these as they
possibly could, they whipped up their flagging sensations
by looking at the feats of Spanish dancing girls, and these
were succeeded by ten couple of gladiators, who slew one
another in the apartment for the pastime of the supremely
indifierent personages who lay half asleep and half drunk,
and lazily applauded the murderous play. The company
were in the very midst of this innocent amusement when
the fire was lit up in Rome by Nero, and which did not
spare the mansion of Siba. The struggle to escape was

520

TABLB TEAITS,

not more furious and selfish than that which took place at
Prince Sohwartzenberg's ball in Paris, at which the de-
vouring flames had as little respect for some of the guests
as they had at the terrible supper of Caius Siba.

It may be said that civilization never afforded such
examples of deformed appetites as some of those which we
find in the records of the olden time. But this is not the
case. They are fewer; but they do exist. We read in
the modern history of Germany, that a man with an
uncontrollable appetite for bacon once presented himself
at the tent where Charles Gustavus was supping, before
Prague, which he was besieging. The man was a boor,
and had sought access to the king, to ask permission to
perform before him a feat which he boasted of being able
to accomplish, — namely, devour a whole hog. General
Koenigsmark, who was present, and was very superstitious,
warned the king not to listen to a being who, if not the
devil, was probably leagued with him. " I'll teU you
what it is, and please your Majesty," said the boor, " if you
will but make that old gentleman take off his sword and
spurs, I'll eat him before I begin with the hog ! " The
general was no coward ; but he took to his heels, as
though the man were serious, and left the king to enjoy
what pleasure he might from seeing a peasant eat a whole

pig-
In Africa, the rustics eat something smaller than pigs
for supper. When CailM was in that quarter of the world,
a Bambere woman gave him some yams, and what he
thought was gambo saiice, to make them palatable. On
dipping his yams therein, however, he saw some little
paws, and at once knew that it was the famous mouse-
sauce ; but he was hungry, and continued his repast. He
often subsequently saw the women chopping up mice for
their suppers. When the animals were caught, they were
singed over a fire, put by for a week, and then cooked. A

SUPPER. 521

hungry man might eat thereof -without loathing. We have
all partaken of far less clean animals.

It is commonly said that the time of the evening meal
is the very hour for wit. I do not know how this may
be, but Souwarow's wit appears to have been uncommonly
alert at supper-time. When he returned from his Italian
campaign to St. Petersburg, in 1799, the Emperor Paul
sent Count Kontaissow to compliment him on his arrival.
The count had been originally a Circassian slave, and valet
to Paul, who had successively raised him to the ranks of
equerry, baron, and count. Tlie Circassian parvenu found
the old warrior at supper. " Excuse me," said Souwarow,
pausing in his meal, " I cannot recall the origin of your
illustrious family. Doubtless your valour in battle pro-
ciu-ed for you your dignity as count." " Well, no," said
the ex- valet, " I have never been in battle.'' " Ah !
perhaps you have been attached to an embassy ?" " No."
" To a ministerial office then ?" " That neither." "What
important post, then, have you occupied?" — "I have been
valet-de-chambre to the emperor." " Oh, indeed," said
the veteran leader, laying down his spoon, and calling
aloud for his own valet, Troschka. " Here, you villain,"
said he, as the latter appeared, " I tell you daily to leave
off drinking and thieving, and you never listen to me.
Now, look at this gentleman here. He was a valet Uke
you; but being neither sot nor thief, he is now grand
equerry to his majesty, knight of all the Russian orders,
and count of the empire. Go, sirrah, follow his example,
and you will have more titles than your master ; who re-
quires nothing just now, but to be left alone to finish his
supper !"

It was at Paris, however, that the evening hour was
generally accounted as the peculiar season of wit j but
wit, often too daring at such an hour, sometimes got
chastised for its over-boldness.

522 TABLE TEAITS.

At one of the pitUs soupers of Paris, in this olden time,
when wit and philosophy had temporarily dethroned re-
ligion, a little ahbg, who had the air of a full-grown Cupid
in a semi-clerical disguise, or who was like Rose Pomponne
in a carnival suit at the Courtille, took upon himself to
amuse the assembled company with stories intended to
ridicule the old-fashioned faith, (as the philosophers styled
Christianity,) and its professors. He was particularly comic
on the subject of hell and eternal punishments, upon which
questions he dilated with a fulness that would have scarcely
edified either Professor Maurice or Dr. Jelf. The whole of
the amiable society exploded in inextinguishable laughter
at hearing this villanous abb6 speak of hell itself as his
"feu de joie !" There was, however, one face there that
bore upon it no traces of a smile. It was that of an old
marechal-de-camp, who might have said, like the old beadle
of St. Mary's, Oxford, " I have held this office, sir, for more
than thirty years, and, thank heaven, I am a Christian
yet ! " Well, the old marechal frowned as, looking at the
infidel abb6, he remarked, "I see very plainly, sir, by your
uniform, to what regiment you belong, but it seems to me
that you must be a deserter." " My dear marechal," an-
swered the profligate priest, with a beaming smile, "it may
indeed be a little as you say, but then, you see, I do not
hold in my troop the rank which you enjoy in yours. I
am not a marechal-de-camp ! " " Parbleu,'' rejoined the
old soldier, "you never could have reached such a rank,
for, to judge by your conduct and sentiment, you would
have been hanged long before your chance came for pro-
motion."

At the soupers of Paris, however, there were few men
who were of the character of our marechal-de-camp. Bun-
gener, in his " Voltaire et son Temps," illustrates the con-
fusion into which men's ideas had got upon the subject of
things spiritual and things temporal, by noticing the affair

SUPPER. 523

of tte Chevalier de la Barre, in 1766. Amid the accusations
brought against him was one, according to which it was
laid to his charge that he had recited in public a certain
filthy ode. He was condemned to be broken on the wheel,
on charges of irreligion, of which this was one. But the
part of the question that must have made Astrsea weep
through the bandage with which poets have bound her
eyes, was this, namely, that the author of the obscene ode
objected to, Piron, was then in the reception of a pension
from the court; and this pension had been procured for
him by Montesquieu, by way of compensation for his
having lost his seat at the Academy, in consequence of his
having be^ the author of this very ode. This confusion
of rewards and penalties was enough to make Justice dash
her brains out with her own scales. Piron would have
been in no wise troubled by such a catastrophe; the pension
from the court enabled him to keep a joyous table, and
that was enough for him.

Duclos was a contemporary and a co-disciple with
Piron, in the temple of philosophy. In 1766, he was at
Eome, where he gave such charming little suppers, that
the Sacred College gratefully extended to him the privi-
leged permission of reading improper books ! The philo-
sophers were then in possession of considerable influence.
Marmontel, who was one of them, was sent to the Bastille,
on a certain Friday, in the year 1760. Soon after his
arrival, he was supplied with an excellent dinner maigre,
the which he ate without thinking of complaining. His
servant was just on the point of addressing himself to the
scanty remains, when lo ! an admirable but somewhat irre-
ligious repast, of meat and other things which come under
the denomination oigras, and are therefore forbidden on fast
days, was brought in. The unorthodox banquet was intended
for Marmontel; the more lenten fare was intended for his
servant. For in those days, although philosophers were

524 TABLE TRAITS.

sent to prison, their appetites were left to their heretical
freedom.

This liberty was allowed by the state, but it was neither
sanctioned nor practised by the Church. The authority
of the latter was great previous to the Revolution. There
was then a clerical police, which looked into the dishes as
well as the consciences of the people — of all degrees.
I have somewhere read of a body of this police coming in
collision, during Lent, with the officers of the household
of the Prince of Conti, who were conveying through the
streets, from a neighbouring rotisseur's to the ducal palace,
a supper, through the covers of which there penetrated an
odour which savoured strongly of something succulent and
sinful, of gravy and gravity. Thereupon the archbishop's
alguazils bade the prince's men stand and deliver. The fol- '
lowers of the house of Conti drew their swords in defence
of their rights and sauces. Much of the latter on the
side of Conti, and a little malapert blood on both sides,
was spilt, to the edification of the standers by. Finally,
the transgressors of the Church law were dragged to pri-
son. The damaged repast remained on the pav6, for the
benefit of poor souls who assumed ecclesiastical licence to
devour it withoiit fear of damnation ; and the servants of
Conti were left in damp cells to meditate at their leisure
upon the argument which Dean Swift at another period
had thus cast into verse : —

" Who can declare, with common sense,
That bacon fried giyes God offence ?
Or that a herring hath the charm
Almighty vengeance to disarm?
Wrapt up in Majesty divine.
Doth He regard on what we dine?"

To pass from cooks and church to courtesy and coach-
men, I may here speak of a certain Girard who was known
in Paris, during the Terror, for his love of what he called

SUPPER. 525

liberty and good living. In his early days he "was a very
independent coachman, and was just on the point of con-
cluding an engagement with an aristocratic old countess,
when he remarked — "Before I finally close with madame,
I should like to be informed for whom madame's horses
are to make way in the streets." " For every one," said
the countess. " On questions of precedence, I am not diffi-
cult J if it is yielded to me, I take it ; if not, I wait."
"In that case," said the aristocratic John, "I shall not
suit, madame, as I myself never draw aside except for the
princes of the blood !" Now this great personage in livery
was no other than the Girard who became, in 1793, the
"public accuser," and who sent to the scaffold those same
nobles who had not been sufficiently noble for him
in 1780.

Upon the matter of what became nobility, however,
there was always much confusion in the "aristocratic
idea " of the highest continental families. Thus who, in
contemplating the famous Princess des Ursins, seated
among the most honoured at the table of the King of
Spain, would dream of her writing the following sentence
in one of her letters to Madame de Maintenon ? " It is I
who have the honour of taking from his majesty his robe
de chamhre, when he gets into bed ; and I am there to
give it to him again, with his slippers, when he rises in
the morning."

The flattery paid to royalty in France was never more
prodigally offered than at the period when "wit and
philosophy" were beginning to undermine the throne.
We have an instance of this in what happened when the
queen of Louis XV. arrived, in 1765, at Fertg-sous-
Jouarre, where she intended to sup and sleep. She was
met beneath an avenue of trees, outside the town, by the
authorities, who offered to her, according to custom, bread
and wine. The queen took a portion of the bread, broke

526 TABLE TRAITS.

it in two, and ate thereof, as well as of some grapes,
sipping also the wine ; to the delight and edification of
the admiring multitude. The authorities were so struck
by the act of condescension on the part of the royal
personage, that they made record of the fact in the
register of the town council. And this they did in such
terms as to cause a commentator to remark, that they
could hardly have said more, had her majesty been a
genuine goddess.

After all, this sort of homage had fallen off, in 1765,
from what it had been two centuries before. When Louis
XII. encountered his bride, Mary of England, outside
Abbeville, he clapped his feeble hands, and wished the
devil might seize him (and he did die soon after) if she
were not more beautiful than report had painted her ! At
the gates of Abbeville, the ill-assorted pair were met by
the Bishop of Amiens and the municipal magistrates, to
welcome them to the evening banquet ere they betook
themselves to repose. The bishop presented the new
Queen of France with a piece of the Real Cross. " The
mayeurs offered a gift, the nature of which brings it
within my subject. The gift was usual whenever king
and queen appeared at the portals of the old monkish
city. It consisted of three tuns of wine, three fat oxen,
and fifteen quarters of oats, three pecks of which were
presented to the astonished lady on bended knee, and in a
measure painted light blue, and covered with golden
fleurs-de-lys. A complimentary address to the king
crowned all. "Sire," said the chief local magistrate,
" you may now conclude your marriage in this our good
city, without any fear of committing sin thereby; for, in
the year 1409 were reformed, as abuses, those synodal
statutes by which men in our city were forbidden to live
with their wives, during three whole mortal days after the
wedding !" The monarch entered and sat down with his

SUPPER. 527

consort to a repast -which rendered both ill for more than
double the period just mentioned. Louis had well-nigh
died, like La Matrie, the infidel philosopher at Berlin, of
an indigestion. Had he done so, it might have been said
of him, as the infidel Prussian king said of La Matrie :
" He was a gourmand, but he died like a philosopher ; let
us have no more anxiety about him."

Frederic himself loved philosophy more than faith,
and philosophical though profligate kings, more than he
did "Most Christian" or "Most Catholic" monarohs. He
was wont, therefore, to laugh at the story of the famished
beggar who, standing near the statue of Henri IV. on the
Pont Neuf, solicited charity of a friend of Voltaire who
was passing by. " In the name of God," said the mendi-
cant. The student of philosophy was deaf. "In the
name of the Holy Virgin !" — " In the name of the saints !"
The appeal was unheeded. " In the name of Henri IV !"
exclaimed the petitioner ; and forthwith the Voltairean put
his hand in his pocket, giving a crown-piece, in the name
of a philosophical profligate, while he refused a sou when
asked for in the name of God. But, as Frederic used to
say, " How divine is philosophy !" In his mouth the ex-
clamation was like the well-known cry of Marcel, the
ecstatic dancing-master: "Que de choses dans unminult!"

There is a story told in connexion with this same great
Frederic which is a good table trait in its way. Joachim
von Ziethen was one of the bravest of the generals who
stood by Frederic the Great in victory or defeat. He
was the son of a poor gentleman, and had little education
save what he could pick up in barracks, camps, and battle
fields, in all of which he figured in early youth. If his
head was not over-ballasted with learning, his heart was
well freighted with that love for God, of which some por-
tion, as the dismissed lecturer on Ecclesiastical History in
King's College tells us, is in almost every individual with-

528 TABLE TRAITS.

out exception, and forms the sheet-anclior which shall
enable him to ride through the storms which keep him
from his desired haven of rest. He became the terror of
the foes of Prussia; but among his comrades, he was
known only as "good father Ziethen." He was remarkable
for his swiftness at once of resolve and execution, and in
remembrance as well as illustration thereof, a sudden
surprise is spoken of by an astonished Prussian as " falling
on one like Ziethen from an ambush."

Now, old Ziethen, after the triumph achieved in the
Seven Years' War, was always a welcome guest at the
table of Frederic the Second. His place was ever by the
side of the royal master whose cause he had more than
-once saved from ruin; and he only sat lower at table
when there happened to be present some foreign royal
mediocrity, illustriously obscure. On one occasion, he re-
ceived a command to dine with the king on Good Friday.
Ziethen sent a messenger to his sovereign, stating that it
was impossible for him to wait on his majesty, inasmuch
as that he made a point of never omitting to take the
sacrament on that day, and of always spending the sub-
sequent portion of the day in private meditation.

A week elapsed before the scrupulous old soldier was
again invited to the royal dinner-table. At length he
appeared in his old place, and merry were the guests, the
king himself setting an example of uproarious hilarity.
The fun was running fast and furious, — ^it was at its very-
loudest, when Frederic, turning to Ziethen, smacked him
familiarly on the back, and exclaimed, "Well, grave old
Ziethen ! how did the supper of Good Friday agree with
your sanctimonious stomach ? Have you properly digested
the verita,ble body and blood?" At this blasphemy, and
amid the thunders of pealing laughter, the saluting artil-
lery of the delighted guests, Ziethen leaped to his feet, and
after shaking his grey hairs with indignation, and silencing

SUPPER. 529

the revellers with a cry, as thougli they had been dogs, he
turned to the godless master of the realm, and said —
words, if not precisely these, certainly and exactly to this
effect : —

" I shun no danger; — ^your majesty knows it. My life
has been always ready for sacrifice, when my country and
the throne required it. What I was, that I am; and my
head I would place on the block at this moment, if the
striking of it oflF could purchase happiness for my king.
But there is One who is greater than I, or any. one here ;
and He is a greater sovereign than you who mock Him
here from the throne in Berlin. He it is whose precious
blood was shed for the salvation of all mankind. On Him,
that Holy One, my faith reposes : He is my consoler in
life, my hope in presence of death; and I will not suffer
His name to be derided and attacked where I am by, and
have voice to protest against it. Sir, if your soldiers had
not been firm in this faith, they would not have gained
victories for you. If you mock this faith, and jeer at those
who cUng to it, you only lend a hand to bury yourself and
the state in ruin." After a pause he added, looking the
while on the mute king : — "What I have spoken is God's
truth; receive it graciously."

Frederic was the patron of Voltaire, who had dared
to say at his own table that what it had taken God and
twelve Apostles to build up, one man (Voltaire) would
destroy. But Frederic was now, for the moment, more
deeply moved by what had been uttered by the unphilo-
sophical Ziethen than by anything that had ever fallen from
the briUiant but irreligious Voltaire. He rose, flung his
left arm over Ziethen's shoulder, ofiered his right hand to
the brave old Christian general, and exclaimed : — " Ziethen,
you are a happy man ! Would that I. could be like you !
Hold fast by your faith ; and I will respect even where I can-
not'believe. What has occurred shall never happen agam.''

M M

530 TABLE TRAITS.

A deep and solemn silence followed, and the dinner was
spoiled, according to the guests, to whom the king gave
the signal to disperse long before their appetites had been
satisfied. Ziethen was preparing to withdraw with the
rest, but Frederic, taking him by the hand, whispered : —
" You, my friend, come with me to my cabinet.''

This anecdote was told by Bishop von Eylert to
Frederic William III. That king, who had never heard
of the incident, pronounced on it a three-piled eulogium of
"excellent, pleasing, and instructive," adding thereto a
natural desire to know what passed between the king and
Ziethen in the cabinet. It were doubtless well worth
knowing, but I have sought for any notice of it, and all in
vain. The good bishop, as he deserved, was invited to
remain at Sans Souci, to supper. " I excused myself,"
says the prelate, in his memoir of the king, " as having
only a common upper coat on." The king replied, smil-
ingly, " I know very well that you have got a dollar and
a dress-coat ; you are the same person in either. I want
ymi, not your coat ; so, go in."

The Prussian soldiers, in the days of the great Frederic,
used to be allowed unlimited liberty in providing them-
selves with food in an enemy's country. The like per-
mission, but somewhat enlarged, was given to the Croat
soldiers, under the name of foraging for "supper;" but
in that permission they included every meal. They are as
ready at it as Abyssinians ; they cut a slice out of the
first beast they fall in with, salt it, put it between the
saddle and the horse's back, gallop till it gets warm, and
then eat it with Croat appetite. The sportsmen of Dau-
phiny eat beccaficoes after much the same fashion ; they
pluck the bird, sprinkle it with pepper and salt, carry it
on their hat to dry in the air, and eat it with relish for
supper, without any further cooking. They declare it is
far better so than when roasted.

SUPPER. 531

Celebrated as the " petits soupers " of the French were
during the last century, they were equalled in brilliancy,
and perhaps surpassed in popularity, by those given in
Paris by the Duchess of Kingston. The adventures of
that very adventurous lady rendered her a favourite with
our lively neighbours. When a rustic Devonshire beauty,
— ^wayward, capricious, ignomnt, and seductive, Elizabeth
Chudleigh was suddenly transplanted to the court of the
Princess of Wales, as maid of honour. She there captivated
the youthful Duke of Hamilton, returned his affection,
and accepted the offer of his hand. They loved intensely,
quarrelled furiously, and were reconciled warmly; the
enemies of both toiled incessantly to prevent the mamage,
and each was daily told of the alleged infidelities of the
other. One of these stories excited the ardent beauty to
such rage that she dismissed her ducal lover, and in the
whirlwind of her wrath gave her hand to Captain Hervey,
brother of the Earl of Bristol. She married in haste, and
repented quite as hastily. She hated her husband before
they left the church together; and after six months of the
most active domestic warfare, the ill-assorted pair sepa-
rated by mutual consent. She went abroad to find solace
for her disappointment, and was heartily welcomed at the
courts of St. Petersburg, Prussia, and Saxony; she was
the favoured guest of Catherine II., and of the great
Frederic, at Berhn; and no electoral banquet took place
at Dresden without being enlivened by her presence and
her wit. When she accepted the invitation to resume her
place at the English court, the reception she met with was
enthusiastic: she played whist with the men, and she
drove four-in-hand as if she had been the born daughter of
a charioteer, brought up to her father's business. Her
accomplishments won the heart of the simplest of dukes
and the gentlest of men, his grace of Kingston, and as an
ecclesiastical court, iu 1769, pronouuced her marriage with

M M 2

532 TABLE TRAITS.

Captain Hervey (notr Earl of Bristol) null and void, she
speedily espoused her ducal admirer, while her former
husband bestowed an earl's coronet on a second wife. The
duke's property was not entailed, and the duchess spent it
with such reckless prodigality, that his grace was fairly
frightened into consumption and death; and in 1773 she
was a beautiful widow, with the large remnant of the
duke's fortune in her possession — as long as she did not
marry again. Away she went to Eome, sailed up the Tiber
in her own yacht, entertained the pope (Ganganelli)
Clement XIV. at breakfast, dinner, and supper, and kept
up such a state that the world had never beheld such ex-
travagant splendour since the days of the most profuse
and profligate of queens : the heirs of the duke, seeing
their inheritance fast melting away, instituted against her
the famous suit for bigamy, on the ground that the eccle-
siastical court which broke her first marriage had no power
to do so. To meet her accusers she hurried to England, where
she considerably startled the modest among our grand-
mothers by her Sunday amusements, and the daily display
afforded by the very lowest of dresses. But as she gave
most splendid dinners she had no lack of friends, and few
men could find it in their hearts to abandon a woman in
distress, whose kitchen fires were never extinguished, who
gave her guests green peas at Christmas, and whose com-
monest beverage was imperial tokay. The House of Lords
judged her case, heard her defence, and pronounced her
second marriage bigamy, by overthrowing the decree of the
ecclesiastical court with regard to her first union. To avoid
the vulgar penalty she immediately fled, crossed the Chan-
nel in a storm, and proceeded to Munich, where she was
royaUy entertained, especially as the law could not touch
the property bequeathed her by the Duke of Kingston.
The courtesy title of duchess was still allowed her, and the
Elector of Bavaria added to it that of Countess of Warth.

SUPPER. 533

Great nobles gave entertainments in her honour, which
lasted for days, and ended with a ball, a banquet, and,
instead of common-place fireworks, the storming of a town
at midnight. Poor nobles vied with each other for her
smiles and the life-interest of her possessions j but as she
had once been nearly entrapped by a Greek Prince Warta,
who turned out to be the son of an ass-driver in Trebi-
zond, and who committed suicide in prison, she made and
kept her resolution to be her own mistress forthe futm-e,
and not that of either count or kaiser.

In France, where she ultimately resided, she purchased
the estate of St. Assize au Port, which had formerly be-
longed to the Duke of Orleans, the father of " Egalitg."
She paid down a million and a half of francs for it, and
sold seven thousand francs' worth of rabbits fi-om it,
during the first week of her residence there. A fricasee
of the duchess's rabbits was, for a long time, the chief
dish at aU the guinguettes round Paris. Her own great
suppers were famous for their refinement and luxury. She
was a lover of good living, a gourmet rather than a gour-
mande; an epicure of taste, but not a glutton; and the
gastronomic art never could boast of a more liberal pa-
tronage than that she bestowed upon it, especially in her
Paris residence, where her table, her wit, her dinners, and
her diamonds, made of her, for a time, the most remark-
able personage in the capital. She died suddenly, of the
rupture of a blood-vessel, in 1788, and was completely
forgotten before that year had also expired.

I have mentioned that our eccentric country-woman
had purchased the property of the Duke of Orleans j and
that reminds me how fatal the table, and particularly the
supper-table, has been to the dukes of that house. Thus
Philippe, the brother, of Louis XIV., quarrelled with the
latter touching the marriage which the king wished to
conclude between one of his own natural daughters and

534 TABLE TRAITS.

the duke's son. Orleans, fevered and flushed, went to sup
"with the ladies of St. Cloud." He had not long before
eaten heavily and drunk deeply at dinner; and at this
second meal he was fatally stricken with apoplexy. The
king said he was sorry, and having thus far given way to
his grief, he sat down with Madame de Maintenon to
rehearse the overture of an opera. This duke's son and
successor gave suppers, at which his infamous daughter,
the Duchess de Berri, presided, and admission to which
was purchased by the candidate making simple denial of
his belief in a God ! The fate of both had something retri-
butive in it. The Duchess de Berri, who had privately
married a profligate and ugly officer of her guards, named
De Riou, sought to overcome her father's wrathful refusal
to acknowledge the union, by giving him a splendid supper
alfresco on the terrace of Meudon, on the 13th May, 1709.
The evening proved cold and damp, and the duchess caught
there a fever brought on by a chill, over feeding, iand
deep drinking, of -v^^hich she died. Fourteen years after-
wards, the sire who, at sixteen, had all the experience in
vice of a man of sixty, was dining with the Duchess of
Phalaria, his last mistress, when he was taken ill. The
physician who was summoned enjoined abstinence im-
mediate and complete. "Wait till to-morrow," said the
duke, " I will enjoy myself to-night." And accordingly,
the exemplary pair supped together, and the lady was in
the act of telling the duke one of her lively stories. As
■she went on, the glass slid from his hand, and his head
sank upon her shoulder. She thought he was asleep, and
went on with her story ; but he to whom she was telling it
was stone-dead. The son of the regent duke was in every
respect unlike his father. He ate his last supper with the
Jansenist fathers of the Genevi&ve,-j-symbol of his geneial
habits and the society he kept. His son was the father of
Egalite, and at the time of his death (1785) was popular

SUPPER. 535

with the lower classes at Paris for the nightly suppers
which he distributed to them, and which consisted of bread
and wine, with medicine for those who needed it. It was
a distribution made not charitably, but politically. Of
the last meal of Egaht6, before he went to execution, I
only know that it was a breakfast, and not a supper, and
that he both ate and drank heartily. Misfortune quite as
little disturbed the appetite of the Louis Philippe of our
own days. During his flight from Paris he never forgot
the hour of supper or dinner; and when "William Smith"
landed at Newhaven, the first thing he asked for was — ■
something to eat. I notice these table traits, simply
because the Orleanist historians always speak contemp-
tuously of Louis XVI. eating, with appetite, in open court
during his trial. The stomach of Orleans was ever as
ready as that of BoTirbon.

The supper has been called the conversational meal, but
to make it so in perfection it requires a thorough professor
of the science of conversation — one who knows that its
very spirit consists less in being a good talker himself than
in flinging about suggestive matter to induce others to
converse upon. The host who understands the science wiU
so do this that his guests will be satisfied with themselves.
Some French writer has said, in reference to this after-
supper gossip, that it should be like a game at cards, at
which each player does his best, — but I do not endorse this
sentiment to its fullest extent, although I aUow that there
is something in it. The wise generally, and dyspeptics
especially, wiU do weU to avoid political subjects after
supper; and perhaps there is no more comprehensive
remark to be made on this matter than one advanced by
a follower of La BruySre, a minor moralist, who has said
that "la confiance foumit plus a la conversation que
I'esprit ou I'grudition."

I recollect once seeing the dullest of evenings made

536 TABLE TRAITS.

suddenly bright by an apt query modestly put by one who
needed not to inquire, but who quietly asked if anyone
present could name the author of the line : —
" Fine by degrees, and beautifully less."

Many a wide guess was fired off prior to the successful
naming. The general opinion was in favour of Pope, and
Pope has indeed written a hne very like it : —
" E'lne by defect, and delicately weak."

The falling upon such coincidences are the very explosives

of after-supper discussions : thus, the very familiar line —

" Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm,"

may be the text for a pretty dispute. It occurs in Addi-
son's " Campaign," and also in Pope's " Dunciad." The
latter poet too has said —

" Ye little stars, hide your dlminish'd rays ;"
but Milton, before him, had written —

" At whose sight all the stars
Hide tteir diminish'd heads."

Schiller's " Thekla " warbles melodiously her melancholy
assurance —

" Ich habe gelebt und geliebet ;"

and Byron's " Sardanapalus,'" equally used up, mutters
with a faint sigh the same words —

" I have lived and loved."
We all know who tells us that

" Gospel light first beam'd from Boleyn's eyes ;''

and Horace Walpole harped on the same tune, when he

said —

" From Catherine's wrongs a nation's bliss was spread,
And Luther's light from Henry's lawless bed."

Gray and Moss, too, afford instances of like coincidences of

SUPPER. 537

sound or senliment, or both. The first, in his " Elegy,"
has^-

" And leaves the world to darkness and to me."

The second, in his " Beggar's Petition," sings to the same
air —

" And left the world to wretchedness and me."

I have noticed, in a former page, how Gray's line of
" Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,"

must necessarily remind one of Shakspeare's words, in the

liiouth of Brutus —

" Dear as the drops that visit this sad heart."

Demosthenes has truly said —

'AvTJp 6 tpevyatv Ka\ TzaKiv fiax^ir^Tait

so that Sir John Minnes is not even the original author of
the Hudibrastically sounding assertion —

" He who fights and runs away,
May live to fight another day."

The lines in Hudibras are as the perfecting and comment
on the above, remarking as they do —

" For he that runs may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain."

These coincidences are, no doubt, unintentional. For my
own part, I do not believe that Shakspeare, when he spoke
in Hamlet, of

" The undiseover'd country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns,"

necessarily had in his mind the

" Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
lUuc unde negant redire quemquam,"

of Catullus; although the latter lines were quoted by
Seneca the philosopher, and were as familiar as household
words among the verse-loving ancients. Dr. Johnson's
remark on the similarity between Caliban's desire to sleep

538 TABLE TEAITS.

again, and the irdXiv ijdeXov KaOevSEiv of Anacreon, may
apply to nearly all the passages in our national poet which
appear to have been derived from the ancients. If vre
judged them by any other rule than that the ideas pre-
sented themselves naturally to Shakspeare's mind, without
consideration whether any one before him had sung to the
self-same tune, we might soon turn Ms, and indeed any
poet's works, into a thing of shreds and patches. For
instance, again, when the young Dane describes Osric
as " spacious in the possession of dirt," we might accuse
the author, yet wrongfully, perhaps, of having stolen the
idea from the "multa dives tellure" of Horace. We
might imagine that the "Id in summa fortuna sequius
quod validius,'' of Tacitus, gave birth to

" That in the captain'-s but a choleric word,
■Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy,"

of Shakspeare, who would have been very much surprised

had he been told as much. Again, CorneiLIe, because he

said,

" Qui commence bien ne fait rien s'il n'achfeve,"

is not to be accused of having written a pendant to the

assertion of Flacous —

" Dimidium facti qui coepit habet."

Neither has Beaumerchais rifled Otway, because " Desirez
du bien 3, une femme est ce vouloir du mal S, son mari,"
has a close resemblance to —

" I hope a man may wish his friend's wife well,
And no harm done."

If mere close resemblance establish a charge of plagiarism,
then Chaucer, when in speaking of maidens dark or fair he ,
said —

" Blake or whit6, 1 toke no kepe,"

stole the thought from the ancient Irish bard, who said —
" Bohumileen a coolen dhuv no baun ;"

SUPPER. 539

a line whioh Chaucer could not have read, though his own
is a literal translation of it. Examples like these I might
go on citing ad infinitum. As Rosalind says, " I could quote
you so eight years together, dinners, and suppers, and
sleeping hours excepted." But I will conclude with one
more case in point between a well-known English author
and the French dramatist Moliere. Thus writes the one —

" What Tfoful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starved, hackuey'd sonneteer, or me !
But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens and the style refines ! "

And thus sung the other —

" Tous les discours sont des sottises,
Partout, d'un homme sans gclat.
Ce seraient paroles exquises,
Si c^'tait un grand qui parla."

If this be digressing, it is because after-supper con-
versation does take a discursive character. In the last
century, in Paris, the majestic nonentities were invited to
dinner ; the talkers, be they who they might, to supper.
"La Eobe dine; Finance soupe," was another of these
distinctions; and it was found that the supper was by
far the most agreeable meal of the day. The Duchess of
Kingston, as I have said, was especially celebrated for her
Paris suppers. They were infinitely more splendid than
her Enghsh breakfasts, so pleasantly sneered at by Horace
Walpole. The wits assembled round her in gay clusters,
and they and the poets cudgelled their brains to prove
one another plagiarists; while the peers stood by, and
marvelled at the extent and elasticity of the human un-
derstanding. Nothing could well surpass the hilarity and
magnificence of these entertainments, where the philoso-
phers were voted as dull as the nobles, and no aristocracy
was acknowledged but the aristocracy of intellect. Another
lady, remarkable for the elegance of the little suppers over

540 TABLE TEAITS.

which she presided, was Madame Tronchin : but the Reign
of Terror came on, and her friends and relatives were daily
dragged from her to the guillotine j and Madame Tronchin,
who had a most feeling heart, used to say, that she never
could have gone through such horrors had it not been for
her little cup of caf6 a la crSme. The courtiers used to
joke in like fashion, at the suppers of Versailles, at national
disgrace. When the Count d'Artois returned from the
siege of Gibraltar, to which he had gone with much boat-
ing, and began to talk of his batteries, the courtiers used
to smile, and to whisper to one another that he meant his
" batterie de cuisine."

With regard to the dietetics of supper, it may be taken
for granted that late, heavy, meals are dangerous, and to
be avoided. Chymification and sleep may go on tolerably
well together after it ; but when the time comes for chyli-
fication and sanguification, feverish wakefulness will ac-
company the process. Dyspeptic patients, however, are
authorized to take a light supper before going to bed. It
is said that the idle man is the devil's man ; and it may
also be said of the stomach, that if it has nothing to do it
will be doing mischief. It is especially so with persons of
weak digestion ; for whom an egg, lightly boiled, or dry
toast and a little white-wine negus, is a supper selon
Vordinance. But a wise man will hardly want a guide in
this matter. Breakfast may be the meal of friendship;
dinner, of etiquette ; and supper, the feast of wit ; — but,
generally speaking, he will show most wit who takes the
least supper. Common sense should teach him the exact
measure of his capacity.

A whale swallows at a gulp more shrimps than would
be required to make sauce for the universe. That gentle
songster, the canary, is like the celebrated contralto song-
stress, who eats daily half a peck of saffron salad ; — the
bird consumes nearly his own bulk weight of food. But

SUPPER. 541

lie is delicate compared with the caterpillar, which con-
sumes five hundred times its own weight before it lies
down, to rise a butterfly. As for the hysena, he is popu-
larly said, when hungry, and other food not presenting
itself, to eat himself; and probably, like Dr. Kitchener, he
carries his own sauce-box about with him ! But the
stomach of man is not made to perform such feats as
those accomplished by the whale, the canary, or the cater-
pillar. He is especially to remember, that though an
animal, he is not a beast.

Man, it must be remembered, began with refinement.
He was made perfect, upright, and to him was given
" every herb bearing seed, which is on the face of aU the
earth, and eveiy tree in which is the fruit of a tree, yield-
ing seed ; to you it shall be for meat." Here food is used
as the symbol of celestial blessings; as in the passage,
" He should have fed them also with the finest of the
wheat, and with honey out of the rock should I have
satisfied them." With the fall, civilization and innocence
also fell, and barbarism was the ofispring of disobedience.
There was a time when men had sunk so low that they
were like the Troglodytes described by Pomponius Mela —
" Troglodytse nullarum opum domini, strident magis quam
loquuntur, specus subeunt, alunturque serpentibus" — they
had no property, shrieked rather than spoke, lived in
caves, and devoured serpents for food. The fine wheat
and the honey from the rock was not theirs. The Fenns,
painted by Tacitus, were only a shade less barbarous :
" Mira feritas," says the graphic Caius Cornelius, " fosda
paupertas ; non arma, non equi, non penates ; victui herba,
vestui pelles, cubili humus" — wonderful for their wildness,
their poverty filthy; they had neither horses, nor gods;
the grass was their food, skins their raiment, and the
ground their couch. The Helvetii were progressistas in the
race for the prize of civilization; and, when planning an

542 TABLE TEAITS.

emigration project, they took two years to thoroughly
perfect the plan, laying up stores of provisions the while.
Whoever Ceres may have really been, it is clear that in
her is to be recognised the benefactress of mankind : —

" Prima Ceres unco glebam dimovit aratro,
Prima dedit fruges, alimentaque mitia terris.
Prima dedit leges ; "

she who taught them the uses of the plough, of agriculture,
and of fixed laws, and who gave them what God had in-
tended for civilized and innocent man, "the finest wheat," —
she must have been the renovator of the earth, and of
beauty upon it. Man, like the rudest saints of the desert —
so near may savagery be to undisciplined sanctity — ^had
been "feeding on ashes;" but now the finest wheat was
again there to give him strength and delight, — wheat,
where golden grain had, perhaps, first yielded its abun-
dance beneath the shade of the primeval tree of know-
ledge.

The era of wheat, of the ploughshare, and of iron, was
the era of the second civilization. Man was no longer
generallya wild savage, or a cunning hunter. God again
vouchsafed to him "the finest of the wheat;" and, as
civilization progressed, so also was widened the circle of
supply, upon which indeed much of civilization depends.

The subject of " Man and his Food," with regard to the
future, has been ably discussed by Dr. Leonard Withington,
of Newbury, Massachusetts. He has moved the question,
whether we have reached the terminus of all our stores or
not? He holds, that the forest, the field, the river, and
the sea may yield contributions to our table, in addition
to the known abundance for which our as abundant grati-
tude is now due. We have not reached the line of our
last inventions ; and, doubtless, new articles are to be dis-
covered, which will have an equal influence on virtue and

STIPPEE. 543

happiness. "Boundless nature," says Dr. Witliington, "lies
before us, and undeveloped skill is wrapt up in the human
breast. The exuberance of our system is not exhausted, —
her beasts, her birds, her fishes, her plants, her growing
trees and her copious grasses, her pastures, her valleys,
her lofty mountains and her rolling streams, are all spread
out to the hungry world. Nature is an image of God,
and she echoes, though she does not originate the words,
'In my Father's house is bread enough, and to spare.
' Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it ; thou greatly
enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water ;
thou preparedst them corn when thou hadst so provided
for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly ; thou
settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it soft with
showers ; thou blessest the springing thereof.' "

Dr. Gumming holds, not only that death is the most
unnatural of conditions, but that when the era of heavenly,
everlasting life shall be established, the heaven of man will
be here upon earth. So Dr. Withington thinks that the
earth will not only be made more heavenly beautiful than
it now is, before the period of the new paradise, but more
abundant also. " The manna," he says, " which is here-
after to be provided, will not be rained down ifrom heaven,
but will spring up fi'om the earth.'' And there is common
sense in this last assertion, for in it is implied that abun-
dance will come by the proper application of knowledge
and labour, without which the earth, ever wise and pru-
dent, wUl yield but little. The increasing populations of
that earth have two objects before them which are of no
small importance, and which are thus defined by Dr.
Withington : — " One is, to impart from the open field of
nature aU those good and wholesome things which our
Father has laid up for us; and secondly, to train our
taste and habits for the using of those things which
are nutritive and sweet, and which may have the best

544 TABLE TRAITS.

influence on our moral character and social happiness."
The training should begin from early childhood, — and early
childhood requires delicate training.

An American writer on dietetics is half afraid that
people will smile if he, in connexion with the subject,
introduces dainty children; and yet, as he justly remarks,
"there is a mystery about this subject, on which we may
well bestow a passing thought." There are children in all
the various classes of life who are " very difficult about
their food." " These little connoisseurs," says Dr. With-
ington, " cannot eat with the rest of the family,, and the
mother and the son are oft^ at issue in an interminable
controversy. The mother often says it is all whim and
caprice; and some severe matrons tell their children that
they shall not eat a morsel until the given lump is de-
voured. But the son would say, if he could quote Shak-
speare, ' You cram these things into mine ear against the
stomach of my sense. I know I don't love it, I can't eat
it; it is not fit to be eaten.'" The doctor proceeds to
inquire if this turn of the appetite be a matter of caprice
or necessity. He examines whether the mother, or the boy
be right. He acknowledges the antiquity of a controversy
which has been carried on for ages, and he has no doubt
" that Eve had it with Cain and Abel, the first supper she
gave them after they were weaned. We offer it," he adds,
" as a profound conjecture, that Cain was a dainty boy,
and probably doubled up his fist at his mother." With
regard to the controversy itself, he appears to think that
it has much of the quality of that which marked the dis-
pute about the colour of the chameleon, and that "both
parties are partly wrong." It is likely, as he remarks,
that much depends on the training and volition, and also
on original nature and temperament. "There are some '
things we were never made for, and they were never made
for us. There are some kinds of food which, though they

SUPPER. 545

may suit the race, were never made for the individual.
But this Winded appetite, partly natural, partly artificial,
follows through life." And this is leaving the controversy
very much where the worthy doctor found it.

Finally, let them who fancy that man was made merely
to enjoy, learn truth from contemplating the portrait of
one whose sole philosophy was gastronomic enjoyment.
If ever there was a man who had a gay celebrity, and who
taught in the porch, that life was only life at the tables in
the " salon," it was the editor of the " Almanach des Gour-
mands." He taught not that hihere est vivere, but that
bibere was only the half of vivere, and that to live was
emphatically to eat and drink. He was a practical philo-
sopher, it should be observed, and here is the portrait of
the man, at the end of his philosophical practice: — "The
author of the Almanack is still in the land of the living.
He eats, digests, and sleeps, in the charming valley of
Longpons. . . . But how is he changed ! At eight o'clock,
he rings for his servants, scolds them, cries Extravagantes !
calls for his soupe aux ficules, and swallows it. Digestion
now commences : the labour of the stomach reacts uj)on
the brain, the gloomy ideas of the fasting man disappear,
calmness resumes her sway, he no longer wishes to die.
He speaks, converses tranquilly, asks for Paris news, and
inquires for the old goizrmands still living. When digestion
is finished, he becomes silent, and sleeps for some hours.
On awaking, complaints recommence ; he weeps, he sighs,
he becomes angry, he wishes to die, he calls eagerly for
death. The hour for dinner comes ; he sits himself down to
table, dinner is served, he eats abundantly of every dish,
although he says he has no want of anything, as his last
hour is approaching. At dessert, h|B face becomes ani-
mated; his eyes, sunk in their orbits, sparkle brightly
' How is Marquis de Coussy, dear doctor ? ' he exclaims :
' how long will he last ? They say he has a terrible disease.

546 TABLE TRAITS.

Doubtless they have not put him on regimen. ' You
would never have suffered that, for one must eat to live, —
ah !' At length, he rises from table. " Behold him in an
immense arm-chair. He crosses his legs, supports his
stumps upon his knees (for he has no hands, but something
resembling the flap of a goose), and continues his conver-
sation, which always runs on eating. ' The rains have been
abundant,' he cries, 'we shall have plenty of mushrooms
this autumn. What a pity, dear doctor, that I cannot
accompany you in your walks to St. Grenevieve I How
fine our vines are ! what a delicious perfume !' And then
he falls asleep, and dreams of what he wiU eat on the fol-
lowing day!"

Fancy, if the theory of guardian angels be a beautiful
truth, what the winged watcher of this animal, staggering
over the supper of life, must feel at contemplating the
ward committed to his care. For our own profit such
examples may be employed, as the ancients showed their
slaves drunk in presence of their sons, that the latter might
be disgusted with inebriety. And this taU-piece should be
engraved at the end of every work professing to teach that
there is even in this world, a paradise for gourmands.
The old heathen Socrates knew better, when he said,
"Beware of such food as persuades a man, though he be not
hungry, to eat; and those liquors that will prevail with
a man to drink them when he is not thirsty.'' In the
same spirit, the pious Dodsley taught, that health sat on
the brow of him only who had temperance for a companion —
temperailce, which Sir William Temple styled as "that
virtue without pride and fortune without envy, which
gives health of body and tranquillity of mind, the best
guardian of yout^and support of old age." So Jeremy
Collier says, "Temperance keeps the senses clear and
Tinembarrassed, and makes them seize the object with
more keenness and satisfaction. It appears with life in

SUPPER. 547

the fece, and decorum in the person ; it gives you the
command of your head, secures your health, and preserves
you in a condition for biisiness." What comment can I
add to texts of such philosophy, but to bid wise men wel-
come to the feast of reason, where

" May good digestion wait on appetite.
And health on bothi "

THE END.

CLAY, PiilSTEB, rilLAD SlRJiiT HILL,