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Table Traits 
 With Something on Them 
 
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 BY 
 
 JOHN DORAN, LL.D. 
 
 
 
 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 
 
 
 Vouiume I, 
 
 
 
 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 FRANCIS A. NICCOLLS & CO 
 BOSTON 
 
 
 
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 Limited to One Thousand 
 
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Contents 
 
 avira th Sect 
 
 PAGE 
 THE LEGEND OF AMPHITRYON . : : ‘ : I 
 DIET AND DIGESTION . : : : : ; : 9 
 WATER . . : : ; . , é : eas 
 BREAKFAST . ‘ . ° : : : : ee 2O 
 THE OLD COFFEE - HOUSES , : : nenaty Ae: 
 THE FRENCH CAFES . ; , : Ol 
 THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIs hee ; ; : a 8808 
 THE MODERN COOK, AND His SCIENCE . : PLES 
 PEN AND INK SKETCH OF CAREME . é i val at 
 DINNER TRAITS . : ; : ‘ : : tae 
 THE MATERIALS FOR DINING . ; : : So ays 
 SAUCES. ; : ; ; : : : “ 220 
 Moai TARASITE 5): . ; : t ee 
 THE TABLES OF UTOPIA AND THE GOLDEN res 200 
 TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES. Peres? 
 
 TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY . ; 5300 
 

 
Table ‘Traits 
 With Something on Them 
 
 —— 
 
 The Legend of Amphitryon 
 
 A PROLOGUE 
 
 “Le véritable Amphitryon est ’Amphitryon ot l’on dine.” — 
 MOLIERE. 
 
 Amone 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 ex- 
 pressed 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 well supplied ? 
 
 But such a solution of the question affords us, 
 after all, no enlightenment as to the mystery of the 
 
 reality of Amphitryon himself, whose name is now 
 I 
 
2 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 worn, and sometimes usurped, by those who preside 
 at modern banquets. 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 
 Teleboans. This isa myth. They were extravagant 
 individuals, 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 his brother’s children, 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 himself in 
 the likeness of the absent husband, set up a house- 
 hold 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 Tele- 
 boan herds, and brought back all the cows and oxen 
 
THE LEGEND OF AMPHITRYON 3 
 
 he found amongst them. He was exhibiting the 
 cattle to his brother Electryon, when one of the ani- 
 mals strayed from the herd; and Amphitryon, in 
 order to bring it back, flung a stick at it, but with 
 such violence, that the weapon, falling on the horns, 
 rebounded as violently upon Electryon, who died 
 upon the spot. But this, too, is a myth; and I have 
 no doubt but that Electryon died of indigestion ; for 
 the Teleboan beef was famous for its toughness. 
 Indeed, many of the Teleboés themselves were so 
 disgusted with it, that they abandoned their A*tolian 
 homes, and settled in the island of Caprez. 
 
 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 “Indicised” as that of Pythagoras. 
 
 In Scotland, the crime of child-stealing is distin- 
 guished 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 
 
4 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 in the far East ; and his history was calling up smiles 
 upon the faces of listeners by the Indus long before 
 the twin founders of Rome had been entrusted, by 
 their nurse Lupa, to walk alone. The Hindoo Am- 
 phitryon 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, and called Amphitryon,—lived 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’s arms.” It was not 
 often, however, that such passages of peace embel- 
 lished 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 hus- 
 band 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 insensible on the threshold of their 
 house, and threatened never again to keep up a 
 ménage 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- 
 
THE LEGEND OF AMPHITRYON 5 
 
 place in a neighbouring 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 awhile, and speedily arrived at a resolution. It 
 infused itself into a human body, which was found 
 without difficulty, and it clothed the whole under the 
 counterfeit presentment of the errant husband. These 
 feats of transmutation were common among the 
 Eastern deities; and I take for granted that my 
 readers are aware that Pythagoras 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 wife of the Hindoo giant was something as- 
 tonished, 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 protestations 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 born 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 
 
6 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 satirised 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 hus- 
 band, and an affray ensued, in which the mortal got all 
 the blows, and his rival all the advantage. The wife 
 was herself perplexed, but manifested a leaning to- 
 ward the irresistible divinity. In vain did the gigan- 
 tic original roar forth the tale of his wrongs, and claim 
 his undoubted rights; and it was only during a lull 
 in the storm that he heeded a suggestion 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 Solo- 
 mon: “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 
 
THE LEGEND OF AMPHITRYON 7 
 
 of the assembled multitude. The Indian mortal first 
 approached the upraised lips of his wife, and he per- 
 formed the required feat with an echo that was as half 
 a hundred culverins to the “ pistol-shot’”’ kiss recorded 
 of Petruchio. The judge and the people looked curi- 
 ously to the defendant, 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 rosebud wet with dew; and 
 therewith ensued a sound as though all the artillery of 
 the skies were saluting, too, in honour of the achieve- 
 ment. The multitude and the Brahmin looked, for 
 all the world, as if they had lost their hearing ; 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 toward the 
 Brahmin 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 unable to distinguish between the almost invisi- 
 ble seed which diets the bird of paradise, 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-measured 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, 
 “ig some supreme being, who has been pleased to 
 amuse himself at the expense of his servants.” 
 
 The god smiled, and confessed to the excellence of 
 
8 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 aérial 
 cab, and, looking from over its side, laughingly bade 
 the edified multitude farewell, adding, that he was the 
 deity appointed to preside at tables that were not un- 
 graced by the fair; and, “if these have a cause for 
 complaint, it is my privilege to avenge them accord- 
 ing 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 
 peasant, 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 beams from the eyes of the fair, 
 who are no longer present 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 Alcmena. He sits 
 presiding at our feast, ensconced within a rose; from 
 thence his smiles urge to enjoyment, and the finger 
 on his lip to discretion ; and every docile guest whis- 
 pers sab vosd, 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 case is still common 
 enough upon earth. These subjects demand brief 
 notice, were it only by way of appendix to this 
 prolegomenical chapter. 
 
Diet and Digestion 
 
 “No digest of law’s like the law of digestion.” — Moore. 
 
 Our good neighbours the French, or rather, the 
 philosophers among them, have asserted that the per- 
 fecting of man and his species depends upon atten- 
 tion 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 be said that the spirit, 
 without judgment, is very likely to be exposed to in- 
 digestion ; 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 rigorously watch- 
 ing over diet, was but a tedious disease. But Wal- 
 pole was nearly correct, while Montesquieu was not 
 very distant from the truth. Dieting, like other 
 things, must be undertaken on common sense prin- 
 ciples ; for, though there be multitudes of mad peo- 
 ple in the world, society generally is not to be put 
 upon the régime 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 . 
 
 9 
 
10 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 these three points, de- 
 serves to forfeit stomach, head, and his electoral 
 franchise ! | 
 
 Generally speaking, fat and spices resist the diges- 
 tive power; and too much nutritious food is the next 
 evil to too little. Good cookery, by developing 
 flavour, increases the nutritiousness of food, which 
 bad cookery would perhaps render indigestible. 
 Hence a good cook rises to the dignity of “artist.” 
 He may rank with the chemists, if not with the phy- 
 sicians. 
 
 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 com- 
 position from that which is taken at meals, and 
 which is indispensable to health. Fish fills rather 
 than feeds; but there are exceptions to this. Vege- 
 tables 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 
 vegetables. 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 maca- 
 roni 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 till 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 regular- 
 
DIET AND DIGESTION II 
 
 » 
 
 ity.” 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 sto- 
 machic than wine. For him and for all lords of that 
 heritage of woe, a weak stomach, the 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, toward the latter 
 (with whom it is common to reduce food to a condi- 
 tion of pulp), but uniting with it so much of the 
 English custom as allows the gelatinous matter to 
 be retained, especially inthe meats. “ Festina lente,” 
 is “ Latin de cutsine,”’ 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 postprandial enjoyment would be. 
 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 hundred works 
 extant on the subject of diet and digestion. Suffer- 
 ers may study the question till they are driven mad 
 by doubt and dyspepsia, 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 sententiz,” is as applicable 
 here as in every other vexed question. But Paris’s 
 book on “ Diet” is the safest guide I know for a man 
 
12 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 who, being dyspeptic, wants to cure himself, or simply 
 to discover the definement of his degree of suffering. 
 On the other hand, every man may find comfort in 
 the reflection, that with early hours, abundant exer- 
 cise, generous diet, but not too much of it, and 
 occupation, — without which a worse devil than the 
 former enters on possession of the victim, — dyspep- 
 sia cannot assume a chronic form. It may be a 
 casual visitor, but it will 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 carriages. Exactly! and why? 
 Because philosophers themselves, like the stoic gen- 
 tleman in Marmontel, after praising simplicity of” 
 living, sink to sleep, on heavy suppers and beds of 
 down, with the suicidal remark, that ‘Le luxe est 
 une jolie 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 condi- 
 tion. There is a self-monitor that may safely be 
 consulted. Of his existence there can be no doubt; 
 for every man who wakes with a headache 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 Rajpoots do not slay half so many of their in- 
 fants out of pride, as we do by indiscreet dieting ; 
 or, to speak plainly, overfeeding. The New Zealand 
 mother is not more foolish, who thrusts stones down 
 the throat of her babe, in order to make him a stern 
 and fearless warrior, and only mars him for a healthy 
 man. And Christian matrons have been quite as 
 
DIET AND DIGESTION 13 
 
 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 all 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 
 made him fly, after flinging away his rod, and thrust- 
 ing his bottle of ale under the grass. When he could 
 again safely resort to the’ same spot, he looked for 
 his bottle, which, on being disturbed, drove out the 
 cork like a pellet froma 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 
 Nowell 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 princi- 
 
14 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 ple of digestion; and as, according to the Latin 
 proverb, “ water gives moderation,” it behooves us to 
 look for a few minutes into the much praised, and 
 little appreciated, agua pura. 
 
Water 
 
 A KENtTucky man, who was lately at one of the 
 great tables in an hotel in the States, where the 
 bill of fare was in French, after sorely puzzling him- 
 self with descriptions which he could not compre- 
 hend, “‘cotelettes a la Maintenon” and “wufs a la 
 braise ;”’ exclaimed, “I shall go back to first princi- 
 ples: 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, com- 
 monly speaking, you can neither buy anything 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 emer- 
 gencies. The diamond and the water illustrate the 
 difference 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 
 
 15 
 
16 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 never desecrate it by purifying them- 
 selves therewith! The ancient Persians and Cappado- 
 cians 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 Egyp- 
 tians gave their divine river more than prayers, be- 
 cause their dependence on it was more absoluté 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 smile superciliously at this 
 old reverence for the “liquid good,’ but there was 
 connected therewith much that we might profit- 
 ably condescend to copy. Greece had her officers 
 appointed to keep her streams pure. Had those 
 officials exposed the people to drink such: indescrib- 
 able matter as we draw from the Thames, they would 
 have been thrown into it by popular indignation. In 
 Rome, Ancus Martius was long remembered, not for 
 his victories, but for his care to supply the city with 
 salubrious and sufficient water ; and if people gener- 
 ally cursed Nero for his crimes, they acknowledged 
 that he had at least not damaged the public aque- 
 ducts; and that in his reign ice-houses were first 
 built, the contents of which enabled thousands to 
 
WATER 17 
 
 quaff the cool beverage which is so commendably 
 spoken of by Aristotle. 
 
 The fountains were the ornaments of the public 
 places, as the crystal ampulla, with its slender neck 
 and its globular body, was of the sideboards of 
 private houses in Rome. 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 largely upon pork, and 
 drank the water as a stimulant! The Emperor 
 Claudius looked upon this regimen as an immoral in- 
 dulgence, and he closed the taverns where proprietors 
 injured the public stomach by such a diet. Some 
 Romans were so particular as to boil the water they 
 intended to drink, in vessels at their own table. 
 They were like the epicures who never entrust the 
 boiling 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 
 recommending a similar use of it, and some of these 
 gentlemen made considerable fortunes by the various 
 methods of applying it. For instance, patients re- 
 sorting 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 realised 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 his “great nostrum 
 was the use of cold water, inwardly and outwardly 
 on all occasions, and that with disregard of precau- 
 tion against catching cold. I have often,” he con- 
 
18 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 tinues, “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 anywhere 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 morality and principle; does it import 
 whether profligacy is baptised 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 water. But discretion must be used ;. for 
 there are conditions of the body which cannot endure 
 cold bathing without palpitation of the heart follow- 
 ing. In such case, tepid water should be used for a 
 time, when the palpitations 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 inscriptions that used to be placed over the holy 
 water in ancient churches. Some deposed that the 
 sprinkling of it drove away devils : 
 
 “ Hujus aque tactus depellit damonis actus.” 
 
 Others promised a blessing, as, for example: 
 
 ‘«« Asperget vos Deus cum omnibus sanctis suis ad vitam 
 eternam.”’ 
 
 Another implied, that six benefits arose from its use ; 
 namely : 
 
WATER 19 
 
 «« Sex operantur aqua benedicta : 
 Cor mundat, accidiam (?) fugat, venalia tollit, 
 Auget opem, removetque hostem, phantasmata pellit.” 
 
 Homer, too, it will be recollected, speaks of the 
 sound of water inspiring consolatory thoughts, 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-Middle- 
 ham, who died with the reputation of a water-drinker, 
 but who really killed himself by secret drunkenness. 
 He praised water in public, but drank brandy in pri- 
 vate, though it was not till after death that his delin- 
 quency was discovered. 
 
 The use of water against the spells of witchcraft 
 lingered longer in Scotland than elsewhere. The 
 Strathdown Highlander even now, it is said, is not 
 ashamed to drink “the water of the dead and living 
 ford,” on New Year's Day, as a charm to secure him 
 from sorcery until the ensuing New Year. 
 
 St. Bernard, the abbot, made application of water 
 for another purpose. Butler says of him, that he 
 once happened to fix his eyes on the face of a 
 woman, but immediately 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 vanquish the enemy! 
 
20 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 
 Proconsul Julius resorted thither to the famous baths, 
 and was restored to such vigorous health thereby, 
 that he not only made sacrifice of thanksgiving to Es- 
 culapius and health, but required the bishop to follow 
 his example. The prelate declined, and the procon- 
 sul ordered him to be thrown into a caldron of boil- 
 ing 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 dispensation 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 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 manfully 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 com- 
 ing 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 
 
WATER 21 
 
 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. “I 
 
 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 Gobat, of Jerusalem. He states, in his last 
 annual letter, that he is building a school which will 
 cost him about 4600: 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 lux- 
 ury which must be paid for. Where it is so dear, it 
 were well if the people never were thirsty ; and there 
 were such people of old. 
 
 The late Vice-Chancellor of England, Sir Lancelot 
 Shadwell, was as indefatigable a bather as the monk 
 noticed by Bede. Every morning throughout the 
 year, during his residence at Barnes Elms, he might 
 be seen wrestling joyously with the Thames. It is 
 said that, on one occasion, a party in urgent need of 
 an injunction, after looking for the judge in a hun- 
 dred 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, listening to the details as the astonished appli- 
 cants made them, and now and then performing a 
 frolicsome “summersault,” when they paused for 
 
22 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 want of breath. The injunction was granted, it is 
 said, after which the applicants left the judge to con- 
 tinue his favourite aquatic sport by himself. 
 
 If the late amiable and able vice-chancellor 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 
 Northumberland — Hugh, Earl Percy — were expert 
 swimmers, and often, by their achievements, excited 
 the admiration of less daring venturers. The arch- 
 deacon 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 ex- 
 cited 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 Doctor Macnish, wrote an 
 «Anatomy of Drunkenness”’ (IIept Mé@ys), 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 without 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 they were, were 
 water-drinkers; and it was peculiar to some of the 
 
 ~ 
 
WATER 23 
 
 Sophists of Elis, that they lived upon nothing but 
 water and dried figs. Their bodily 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 
 anything but a celestial ichor, and that whenever they 
 went to the baths, all the other bathers fled, holding 
 their offended noses between their fingers! Matris, 
 of Athens, lived all his life upon myrtle-berries 
 and water; but, as nobody knows how long he did 
 live, 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 Diocles, of Peparethus; but as 
 they were never famous for anything else, they are 
 hardly worth citing. It is different when we con- 
 trast 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 Doctor Young, in fact, constantly engaged in 
 solemn night thoughts. ‘“ Not so your other dema- 
 gogue, 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 election speeches in Greece; 
 and it has a smack of the hustings, 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 : 
 
24 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 ‘“‘ Partly work and partly play 
 Ye must, on St. Distaff’s Day. 
 From the plough soon free your team, 
 Then come home and fother them. 
 If the maids a-spinning go, 
 Burn the flax, and fire the tow, 
 Scorch their plackets, but beware 
 That ye singe no maiden-hair. 
 Bring in pails of water then, 
 Let the maids bewash 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 indifferently supplied with water. But now 
 London is supplied with water from eight different 
 sources. Five of them are on the north, or Middle- 
 sex, side of London, three on the Southwark and 
 Surrey side. The first comprise the New River, at 
 Islington; the East London, at Old Ford, on the 
 Lea; the West Middlesex, on the Thames, at Brent- 
 ford and Hammersmith; and the Chelsea and Grand 
 Junction, on the same river, at Chelsea. The south 
 side is entirely supplied from the Thames, by the 
 Southwark, Lambeth, and Vauxhall Waterworks, 
 whose names are descriptive of their locality. 
 
 The daily supply amounts to about thirty-five mil- 
 lions 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 pro- 
 posed to supply the London conduits from the wells 
 about Amwell and Ware. The project was com- 
 
 
 
« 
 
 WATER 25 
 
 pleted in 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. 
 Cunningham, in his “ Handbook of London,” informs 
 us that the old sources of supply were the Wells, or 
 Fleet River, Wallbrook and Langbourne Waters, 
 Clement’s, Clerk’s, and Holy Well, Tyburn, and 
 the River 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 sup- 
 plied 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. Cunning- 
 ham, “a wax-charndler in Flete Strete had bi craft 
 perced a pipe of the condite 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 engi- 
 neer was Maurice, a Dutchman. Bulmer, an Eng- 
 lishman, 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 
 
26 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 inhabitants of the district depended upon their 
 tankards and water-carriers, until the reign of William 
 III., when the York Buildings Water-works were 
 erected. The frequently occurring name of Conduit 
 Street, or Conduit Court, indicates the whereabout 
 of many of the old sources whence our forefathers 
 drew their scanty supplies. 
 
 Water is not necessarily unhealthy, because of a ~ 
 
 little earthy matter in it; mineral, or animal, or 
 vegetable matter held in it, by solution, or otherwise, 
 renders it decidedly unwholesome. Rain-water is the 
 purest water, when it is to be had by its natural dis- 
 tillation in the open fields. When collected near 
 
 towns, it should never be used without being pre- . 
 
 viously boiled and strained. 
 
 The hardness of water is generally caused by the 
 presence 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 all vegetable matters, is to be preferred for 
 all domestic purposes. River water is seldom pure 
 enough for drinking. Where purest, it has lost its 
 carbonic acid from long exposure; and in the neigh- 
 bourhood of cities it is often a slow poison, and noth- 
 ing more, scarcely to be rescued from the name by 
 the process of filtration. London is still supplied, at a 
 
WATER 27 
 
 very costly price, with water which is “offensive to 
 the sight, disgusting to the imagination, and destruc- 
 tive to the health.’ Thames water, as at present 
 flowing into our houses, is at once the jackal and 
 aid-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 wells 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 reputa- 
 tion 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 ; 
 _ and we have not yet adopted in full the recommenda- 
 ‘tion of Vitruvius and Columella to use pipes of 
 earthenware, as being not only cheaper, but more 
 durable and more wholesome, than lead. We still 
 convey away refuse water in earthenware, and bring 
 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 supercar- 
 bonate of lime, are only to be destroyed by boiling. 
 Boiled water, cooled, and agitated in contact with the 
 atmosphere, before use, is a safe and not an unpleas- 
 
28 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 ant beverage. It is essential that the water be boil- 
 ing 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 applicable to him, that “he is 
 the only animal privileged to drink, without being 
 thirsty.” But, then, where would the medical pro- 
 fession have been? 
 
 But he does well who, at all 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 
 
 SwirT lent dignity to this repast, and to laun- 
 dresses partaking of it, when he said, in illustration of 
 modern epicureanism, that ‘the world must be 
 encompassed before a washerwoman can sit down to 
 breakfast.”’ 
 
 Franklin, who made a “morality” of every senti- 
 ment, 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 /udicator 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, etc. One of the first 
 things that belong to a breakfast 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 
 
 29 
 
30 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 cold morning, and seeing everything prepared for us, 
 —a blazing grate, a clean table-cloth and tea-things ; 
 the newly washed faces and combed heads of a 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 delicious thing 
 to resume an entertaining book, at a particularly in- 
 teresting 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, accompanied by a co- 
 existent bite of the toast, comes under the head 
 of ‘intensities.’’’ Under the head of “etc.” in the 
 
 above list, I should be disposed to include “sun- | 
 
 shine ;” for sunshine in a breakfast-room in winter, is 
 almost as glorious a thing as the fire itself. Itisa 
 positive tonic; it cheers the spirits, strengthens the 
 body, and promotes digestion. As for breakfast in 
 hot weather, all well-disposed persons who have gar- 
 dens take that meal, of course, in “the arbour,” and 
 amid flowers. Breakfasts, a/ 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 till mid- 
 summer 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 extraordinary severity. 
 
 The breakfast of a Greek soldier, taken at dawn 
 of day, required a strong head to bear it. It con- 
 sisted of bread soaked in wine. If princes were in 
 
 ad 7 
 ind ye. - * eas a * 5 ‘ ™ é - — oT - . 
 sie a a ee ee ee ee ee ee a ee ee “ iM, 
 
BREAKFAST 31 
 
 the habit of so breaking 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 solid meal. Soldiers and 
 plebeians had less controllable appetites, and these 
 could not be appeased with less than two meals a day. 
 They were accounted peculiarly coarse people who 
 consumed three. The Romans were, in this respect, 
 similar 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 sound; but good 
 authority assures us, that it was a custom duly hon- 
 oured 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 daybreak. 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, scram- 
 bled for the same. 
 
 Modern epicures would hardly approve 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 matter. 
 
 When Clapperton, the African traveller, break- 
 fasted with the Sultan of Baussa, which is a collec- 
 tion of straggling villages on the banks of the Quorra, 
 among the delicacies presented were a large grilled 
 water-rat, and alligators’ eggs, fried or stewed. The 
 
32 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 breakfast 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 entertainments 
 in honour of princes. bs 
 
 “ /Klia Lelia”? Chudleigh, as Walpole calls the 
 famous lady who was still more famous as Duchess 
 of Kingston, gave splendidly untidy entertainments 
 of this sort in a splendidly untidy mansion. Her 
 suppers will be found noticed in another page. In 
 1763, she 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, cabi- 
 nets, commodes, tables, stands, boxes, riding on one 
 another’s backs, and loaded with terrenes, figures, 
 filigrees, and everything 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-lazuli, cameos, toothpick 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 conveniences in every bedcham- 
 ber ; great mahogany projections, with brass handles, 
 cocks, etc. I could not help saying it was the loosest 
 family I ever saw.” 
 There was a philosopher of the same century, at 
 
 
 
BREAKFAST 33 
 
 whom even Walpole dared not have sneered. I allude 
 to Doctor Black, whom Lavoisier called “the Nestor 
 of the Chemical Revolution.” Doctor 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 milk 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 joined 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 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 
 registering all 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 
 from 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 
 
34 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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. Sucha 
 breakfast, he says, will not only fortify the traveller 
 for a lengthened period, but to the sedentary, the 
 bilious, and the dyspeptic, its adoption will 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 
 handsful 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 saucepan over the fire, and keep 
 stirring it, sprinkling, from time to time, small quan- 
 tities of the meal, till the composition 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 will form a soft, thin, jellied cake; 
 spoon out portions of this, 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 anything to equal the 
 dish. It was execrable! But it has the double 
 recommendation of being easy to digest, and of keep- 
 ing off the sensation of hunger for a very long time. 
 Use alone is needed to make it a popular breakfast, 
 and he is a hero who uses it till he likes it. But it is 
 time to consider the various — 
 
BREAKFAST 35 
 MATERIALS FOR BREAKFAST 
 
 AnD first of milk. If Britons really have, what 
 they so much boast of, —a birthright, —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 advan- 
 tage. 
 
 It-1s)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 Rousseau 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 breakfasts?” Certainly this vica- 
 rious exercise of. the office of maternity is an abomi- 
 nation; 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.” . 
 
 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 call the agua 
 pumpaginis, has very much to do with the dairies of 
 London. Metropolitan milkmaids are not as unso- 
 phisticated as the milkmaids of the olden time; if, 
 indeed, maids or milk were particularly pure even 
 
36 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 then; for milk was a propitiatory offering to Mer- 
 cury, 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 toilet-vases of the Empress 
 Poppzea ; and some dozen or two were kept to main- 
 tain 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. 
 
 “Oil of milk” and “cow-cheese’’ were classical 
 names for butter,—a substance which was not 
 known in either Greece or Rome until comparatively 
 late periods. Greece received it from Asia, and 
 Rome 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 mod- 
 ern Bedouins, were great butter-consumers. Their 
 churners were slaves, captured in war, and blinded 
 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 Ab- 
 yssinia, butter has been burned in the lamps in 
 churchs, instead of oil. The “butter-tower”’ of the 
 cathedral at Rouen owes its distinctive appellation 
 to its having been built from the proceeds of a tax 
 levied in return for permissions to eat butter at 
 uncanonical times ; so that the tower is a monument 
 of the violation of the ecclesiastical canons. But 
 there is great license in these matters; and chapels 
 in Ireland have been constructed with money raised 
 
 
 
BREAKFAST 37 
 
 by putting up Moore’s erotic works to be raffled for, 
 at half a crown a ticket! 
 
 Goats, cows, sheep, asses, and mares have all con- 
 tributed their milk toward the making of cheese; and 
 national 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’ milk 
 mixed together. I doubt, however, if the strong- 
 smelling 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 
 Rome breakfasted on bread and cheese, — principally 
 goat cheese. It was administered, on the same prin- 
 ciple that we prescribe rump-steak, as strengthening. 
 People in rude health flourished in spite of it, and 
 therefore ailing people must, it was thought, be invig- 
 orated 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 
 complimentary or not, but it is a fact, that the milk 
 of asses more nearly resembles human milk than any 
 other. Like the human milk, it contains more saccha- 
 rine matter than that of the cow, and deposits a large 
 proportion of curd by mere repose. 
 
 Milk is easily assimilated, nourishes quickly, and 
 but slightly excites to vascular action. It is strin- 
 gent, however, and has a tendency to create acidity ; 
 but an addition of oatmeal gruel will correct both 
 
38 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 these matters. Suet, inserted in a muslin bag, and 
 simmered with the milk, is of highly nourishing qual- 
 ity; but it is sometimes more than weak stomachs 
 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 eulogised 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 in 
 question, without the whole body of the laity profit- 
 ing thereby! I suppose that dissenters 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 cesophagus 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 pro- 
 foundly delighted husbands, and from which spring 
 young babies, six feet high, and men at all points. 
 
 If the matrons in the moon were thus remarkable 
 in this respect, the Egyptian shepherds on earth were 
 not less so in another: they had a singular method 
 of cooking eggs, without the aid of fire. They laid 
 them in a sling, and then applied so violent a rota- 
 tory motion thereto, that they were heated and 
 
BREAKFAST 39 
 
 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 
 foretell that of the expected little stranger. In Rome 
 and Greece eggs were among the introductory por- 
 tions of every banquet. But Rome knew only of 
 twenty different manners of cooking them. What 
 an advance in civilisation. has been made in Paris, 
 which, according to Mr. Robert Fudge, boasts of six 
 hundred and eighty-five ways to dress eggs! 
 
 Eggs filled with salt used to be eaten by curious 
 maidens, after a whole day’s fasting, on St. Agnes’s 
 Eve: the profit of such a meal was, that she who 
 partook of it had information, in her after-dreams, of 
 that very interesting 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 anything 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 six 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. 
 
40 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 The result was that they kept their stepmother, the 
 weaver, in bacon and eggs for many a month; and 
 the two days spent in bed were not so entirely thrown 
 away as might, at first sight, appear. 
 
 Let it be understood that eggs may lose their 
 nourishment by cooking. The yolk, raw or very 
 slightly boiled, is exceedingly nutritious. It is, more- 
 over, the only food for those afflicted with jaundice. 
 When an egg has been exposed to a long continuance 
 of culinary heat, its nature is entirely changed. A 
 slightly boiled egg, however, is more easy of digestion 
 than a rawone. The best accompaniment for a hard 
 ege is vinegar. Raw eggs have a laxative effect; 
 hard-boiled the contrary. There is an idiosyncrasy in 
 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 slight. Eggs should always be 
 liberally accompanied by bread; of which I will now 
 say a few words, and first of — 
 
 CORN 
 
 Our first parents received the mission to cultivate 
 the garden which was given them fora home. Their 
 Hebrew descendants looked upon tillage of all de- 
 scriptions 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 barn, kings guided oxen, 
 and prophets were summoned from the furrows to 
 put on their mantles, and go forth and tell of things 
 
BREAKFAST 41 
 
 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 appellations of many of 
 her localities have reference to the beauty and the 
 blessings showered down upon them by the Lord. 
 
 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 mil- 
 lion bushels of corn was the life-sustaining tribute 
 which she annually poured into the storehouses of 
 imperial Rome. 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, acknowl- 
 edged the divine influence; and his first public act, 
 as king, was to raise the twelve sons of his nurse into 
 a priesthood, charged with watching over the fields, 
 
42 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 and paying sacrifice 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 favour at his 
 hands. The new Pope looked on his old acquaint- 
 ances 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 dis- 
 tinguished by its having two harvests every year!” 
 And the obliging “successor of the fisherman” 
 smiled, and not only granted their request, but prom- 
 ised 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. 
 
 The older Romans honoured agriculture, as did 
 the Jews. Their language bore reference to this, their 
 coin was stamped with symbols in connection there- 
 with, and their public treasury, “fascua,’ showed, 
 by its name, that “pasturage” was wealth. So he 
 who was rich in minted coin enjoyed the pecunza, or 
 “money, for which “flocks” (pecus) were bought 
 and sold. The owner of an “estate” (docus) was 
 locuples, a term for a man well endowed with worldly 
 goods; and he was in possession of a “salary,” who 
 had his salartwm, his allowance of salt-money, or of 
 salt, wherewith to savour the food by which he lived. 
 
 The Greeks refreshed the mouths of their plough- 
 
 
 
BREAKFAST 43 
 
 ing oxen with wine. The labour was considerable ; 
 for, although the plough was light, it lacked the con- 
 veniences 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 Republicans made a show of paying 
 honour to agriculture by public 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 pronounced 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, like 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 exalting! how 
 stimulating! how proudly inspiring for the Venetians, 
 when their nation was, in reality, sovereign of the 
 seas! But now it is little more than a ridiculous 
 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 
 
44 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 arrest for debt all persons engaged in the cultivation 
 of land, “with intent to raise grain and fruit neces- 
 sary for the sustenance of men and beasts.” All the 
 property of such husbandmen was alike exempted 
 from seizure; and it strikes us, that this was a much 
 more reasonably founded exemption than that with 
 which we endow vowé members of Parliament, 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 presence 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 Romans created a corn-god, and then 
 asked its protection. The powerful deity was called 
 Robigus, and he was solemnly invoked, on every 25th 
 of April, to keep mildew from the grain. The 
 Romans had a reverence for corn, 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 a basin of gruel (made from bar- 
 ley), declared its proper appellation to be “acqua 
 crudele.” We accounted of it, as Pliny did of rye, 
 
 
 
BREAKFAST 45 
 
 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 qual- 
 ity, 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 procured, — 
 though they are less attractive to the palate than 
 those sweet buns made from sesame grain, and which 
 the Romans not only swallowed with delight, but 
 used the name proverbially. The lover who was 
 treating his mistress 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 corn to make them with, to the people, in 
 order to gain the popular esteem, and suppress sedi- 
 tion. In some cases, it was as a “poor’s rate” paid 
 by the emperors, and costing 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 millions of bushels — twenty 
 times that number of pounds’ weight — were supplied 
 
46 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 by Africa; and those “sweet nurses of Rome,” the 
 islands of the Mediterranean, also poured into the 
 imperial granaries an abundant tribute of the golden 
 seed. It is a fact, however, that neither Romans nor 
 Gauls were, till a late period, acquainted with the 
 method of making fermented bread. 
 
 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 Roman 
 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 pos- 
 sessed both. Our ladies of the Gate, in Billing’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 
 sisterhood was standing at her stall, in front of one of 
 the Bristol banks. She had a £10 Bank-of-England 
 
BREAKFAST 47 
 
 note in her hand; and as, in her younger days, she 
 had been nurse-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 guineas were worth five and twenty shil- 
 lings apiece, and gold was scarce, and —in short, 
 she met with a refusal. The quick-witted market- 
 woman, without exhibiting any disappointment, there- 
 upon asked the cashier to let her have ten of the 
 bank’s AI notes in exchange for her “ Bank-of-Eng- 
 lander.” The cashier was delighted to accommodate 
 her in this fashion. The exchange being completed, 
 the old lady, taking up one of the provincial notes, 
 read aloud the promise engraved upon it, to pay the 
 bearer in cash. ‘ Very good!”’ said she, with a glee- 
 some chuckle, “now gi’ me goold for your notes, or 
 I'll run 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 Roman 
 soldiery, for many years, had no better food than 
 gruel made from oatmeal, and sharpened for the 
 appetite by a little vinegar. The vinegar was an 
 addition suggested by Numa, who also not only im- 
 proved 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 “guild,” placed under the protection of the 
 goddess Fornax, —and a very indifferent, nay, dis- 
 reputable, deity she was! The public ovens were to 
 
48 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 the people of Rome what a barber’s shop is to a vil- 
 lage in war-time, —the temple of gossip. It had 
 been well had they never been anything worse! The 
 vocation of baker was hereditary in a family; the son 
 was compelled to follow his father’s calling. Occa- 
 sionally, a member of the fraternity was offered a 
 senatorship; but then he was required to make over 
 his property, realised by baking, to his successors ; 
 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 religious liberty exercised by the bakers them- 
 selves, who chose to pay adoration to Vesta. Vesta 
 was the very antipodes in character and attributes to 
 Fornax ; 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 in the 
 markets at Rome. There was Cappadocian bread for 
 the wealthy; pugilistic loaves for the athletz ; bat- 
 ter-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 injuring their complexion, 
 were wont to keep applied to their cheeks during the 
 hours of sleep. Anadyomene so slumbering, 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 pants madidus than blushes on the cheeks of 
 either. 
 
 
 
BREAKFAST 49 
 
 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 prolificness of millet, by asserting that a single 
 grain produced “innumerable ears of corn; and that a 
 bushel (twenty pounds’ weight) of millet would make 
 ‘more than sixty pounds of wholesome bread!” The 
 Romans and the Greeks also appear to have been 
 acquainted with Indian corn. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau, much as he affected to 
 love nature, —and he was himself one of the most 
 artificial of characters, — knew very little about her, 
 or her productions. 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, promising a glorious 
 harvest of grain. One of them extolled the beauty 
 of the wheat. “Nay,” said the second, “it is rye.” 
 ‘‘Not so,” remarked the third, ‘it is a field of bar- 
 ley.” A clown, standing by, heard and marvelled at 
 the triple ignorance. “You are all wrong, gentle- 
 Men, 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 in the vicinity of 
 Herne Bay; and I was once gravely asked if it was 
 teazigt*' 
 
 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 
 
50 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 changed, although the land be chemically the same, 
 the canary will scarcely grow at all. It is shipped in 
 large quantities from Herne Bay for London, where 
 it is used for many purposes. None of its uses are 
 so singular as one to which corn 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 coating of neat’s-foot oil, laid 
 on and left to dry, rendered the boot or shoe fit 
 for wear. 
 
 A more interesting anecdote in connection with 
 corn, and illustrative of character, is afforded us by 
 Doctor Chalmers 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 Christian judg- 
 ment recovered itself from the influence of human 
 nature: “November 20, 1812. — Was provoked with 
 Thomas taking it upon him to ask more corn for my 
 horse. It has got feeble under his administration of 
 corn, and I am not without suspicion that he appro- 
 priates it; and his eagerness to have it strengthens 
 the suspicion. Erred in betraying anger to my ser- 
 vant and wife; and, though I afterward got my feel- 
 ings 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 corn 
 
 
 
BREAKFAST SI 
 
 into my own hand, but carry it to him with entire 
 charity. Oh, 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 philosopher ; 
 “‘T have the worst possible temper, by nature; with 
 the strongest possible control over it, by philosophy.” 
 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 corn 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, and occasionally taking a slice 
 therefrom for himself. 
 
 There is no greater consumer of corn 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; “ consum- 
 ing 159,500,000 pints of corn annually, to the value 
 of 41,476,562 tos.” It is impossible for calcula- 
 tion to be made closer. Darwin says of pigeons, 
 that they have an organ in the stomach for secreting 
 milk. And it is not alone in the way of devouring 
 corn that they are destructive. In the “ Philosophi- 
 cal Transactions,” it is mentioned that pigeons for 
 many ages built under the roof of the great church 
 
52 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 of Pisa. Their dung spontaneously took fire, at last, 
 and the church was consumed. 
 
 I have said that the Roman soldiers marched to 
 victory under the influence of no more exciting stim- 
 ulant than gruel and vinegar. A little oatmeal has 
 often sustained the strength of our own legions in 
 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 blue jackets, 
 — each man with a stout staff in his hand, and a rye 
 loaf and a ham on his back. “Fritz” glared with 
 astonishment when they presented themselves at his 
 headquarters. “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 fire 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 fam- 
 ished 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 that nature revolts 
 
 
 
BREAKFAST ie 
 
 at. When every other sort of food had disappeared, 
 the government within the walls distributed very di- 
 minutive 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 first desire was to secure to every 
 man in France his “foule au pot!’ But enough of 
 bread. Let us examine briefly the subject of — 
 
 . 
 
 BUTTER 
 
 THE illustrious Ude, or some one constituting him 
 the authority for the nonce, has sneered at the Eng- 
 lish as being a nation having twenty religions, and 
 only one sauce, — melted butter. A French com- 
 mentator has added, that we have nothing polished 
 about us but our steel, and that our only ripe fruit is 
 baked apples. Guy Pantin traces the alleged dislike 
 of the French of his day for the English, to the cir- 
 cumstance 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 
 characterise ‘‘bread sauce,” with pheasant. But, to 
 return to butter: the spilling of it has more than 
 once been elucidative of character. When, in the 
 days of the old régime, an English servant acciden- 
 tally let a drop or two of melted butter fall upon the 
 silken suit of a French fetzt maitre, the latter indig- 
 nantly declared that ‘blood and butter were an Eng- 
 
54 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 lishman’s food.’”’ The conclusion was illogical, but 
 the arguer was excited. Lord John Townshend man- 
 ifested better temper and wit, when a similar acci- 
 dent befell 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 
 anything but 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 anything stronger. Solid breakfasts are 
 only fit for those who have much solid exercise to 
 take after it; otherwise heartburn may be looked 
 for. Avoid new bread and spongy rolls; 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 fell 
 asleep, and he was so angry with himself, on awaking, 
 
BREAKFAST 55 
 
 that he cut off his eyelids, 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 eyelids 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. 
 
 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 eulogisers 
 affirmed that two hundred cups a day might be 
 drunk without injury to the stomach of the drinker. 
 In the ninth century tea was taken in China simply 
 as a medicine; and it then had the repute of being a 
 _ panacea. The early Dutch physicians who so ear- 
 nestly recommended its use as a common beverage, 
 met with strenuous opposition. France, Germany, and 
 Scotland, in the persons of Patin, Hahnemann, and 
 Duncan, decried tea as an impertinent novelty, 
 “and the vendors of it as immoral and mercenary. 
 Nor was Holland itself unanimous in panegyrising 
 the refreshing herb. Some, indeed, eulogised 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.” Ole- 
 arius, 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 Mogul as a 
 present to the Tsar, on the ground that the gift 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, 
 
56 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 but contrived to do so by a very 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 acquisi- 
 tion, 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 favour, if its original 
 cost was, as it is said to have been, 60s. per pound. 
 But great uncertainty 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 been 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 ob- 
 ject. In 1678, Bontekoe, a Dutch physician, pub- 
 lished 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 
 
BREAKFAST 57 
 
 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 IIs. to 50s. per pound. The taking tea 
 with a visitor was soon a domestic circumstance 3 and, 
 toward the end of the century, Lord Clarendon and 
 Pere Couplet supped together, and had a cup of tea 
 after supper, an occurrence which is journalised by 
 his lordship without any remark to lead us to suppose, 
 that it was an extraordinary event. 
 
 Doctor Lettsom has written-largely, and plagiarised 
 unreservedly 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 established the unwholesomeness of 
 green tea. He “distilled some green tea, injected 
 three drachms of the very odorous and _ pellucid 
 water which he obtained, into the cavity of the ab- 
 domen and cellular membrane of a frog, by 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 
 unwholesome’”’ —to the frogs, and so applied, as it 
 undoubtedly was. Such experiments, however, are 
 unsatisfactory. Mux vomica, for instance, deadly 
 poison to man, may be taken, almost with impunity, 
 by many animals. 
 
 The first brewers of tea were often sorely per- 
 plexed with the preparation of the new mystery. 
 «Mrs. Hutchinson’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 
 
58 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 tiemegae 
 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 Williams — “the 
 Christian merchant”’ of the early and middle part of 
 last century, whose biography is well known to serious 
 readers — did, when he wrote to his friend Green 
 upon the necessity of “setting the Lord always be- 
 fore 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 with 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 
 Sherborne, 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 tendencies of evil 
 communications among men, which nothing will pre- 
 vent (like 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 
 
BREAKFAST 59 
 
 with wise men shall be wise.’ He that converses 
 with heaven-born souls, whose conversation is in 
 heaven, whose treasure and whose hearts are there, 
 will 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 ill impressions from vicious or vain conversation 
 will, by retiring from the world, by communing with 
 his own heart, by heavenly meditation, and fervent 
 prayer, recover his spiritual ardour.’’ The simile, 
 however, 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 enjoyment. A 
 guinea may be kept for ever unstained by the com- 
 merce 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 
 effected 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. “Oh 
 that I may walk humbly,” he says, ‘and look on 
 myself, when fullest of divine communications, but as 
 a drinking-glass without a foot, and which, conse- 
 quently, cannot stand of itself, nor retain what may 
 be put into it.” A very tipsy-like simile. 
 
 I may be permitted to add that, after all, religion 
 happily proved stronger than tea, but not without 
 
60 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 still stronger opposition ; and we are told by the dis- 
 gusted Connozsseur, that “persons of fashion cannot 
 but lament that the Sunday evening tea-drinkings in 
 Ranelagh were laid aside, from a superstitious regard 
 to religion.” A remark which shows how very poor 
 a connoisseur this writer was in matters of propriety. 
 Not, indeed, that diet and divinity could 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 150 years ago, too, there 
 was a semi-religious, semi-roistering club held at the 
 ‘Northern Ale-house in St. Paul’s Alley,” 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 responsibility 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,” recom- 
 mends 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 Hibernian 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 left town after the coronation of George 
 I., says that she went to the country — 
 
BREAKFAST 61 
 
 “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 belles who 
 remained in town made of tea a means for other ends 
 than shortening time. Doctor Young, in his “ Sat- 
 ires,” says of Memmia, that — 
 
 ‘“ Her two red lips affected zephyrs blow, 
 To cool the Bohea and inflame the beau; 
 While one white finger and a thumb conspire 
 To lift the cup and make the world admire.” 
 
 -Doctor Parr’s delicate compliment is well known ; 
 but I may be pardoned, perhaps, for introducing it 
 here. He was not very partial to the 7hea Sznensts, 
 though lauded so warmly by a French writer, as 
 “nostris gratissima Musis ;’’ but once being invited 
 to take tea by a lady, he, with a mixture of wit and 
 gallantry, exclaimed, “ WVec teacum possum vivere, nec 
 sine te!” The Christchurch men at Oxford were 
 remarkable, at an early period, for their love of tea; 
 and, in reference to it, they were pleasantly recom- 
 mended to adopt as their motto: “ Ze ventente die, 
 te decedente notamus.’ In 1718, Pope draws an 
 illustration from tea, when writing to Mr. Digby: 
 “My Lady Scudamore,” he remarks, jocosely, “from 
 having rusticated in your company too long, really 
 behaves herself scandalously among us. She pre- 
 tends 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, 
 
62 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 of good books, and has not seen Cibber’s play of 
 ‘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 tongue.” 
 
 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, de- 
 presses or unnaturally excites and damages the diges- 
 tive 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 
 then the dose should be small. Tea, as a promoter 
 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 distension. The astringency of tea is dimin- 
 ished by adding milk, 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 
 
BREAKFAST 63 
 
 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 proc- 
 ess is extensively adopted. At one time the chests 
 were rendered heavy by an adulterated mixture of 
 a considerable quantity of tea, and a not inconsider- 
 able quantity of earthy detritus, strongly impregnated 
 with 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 ad- 
 hering 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 lady- 
 ship’s stereotyped joke, of “ Sugar yourselves, gentle- 
 men, and I[’ll milk you all.” 
 
 Tea-parties, I may observe in conclusion, are not 
 confined in China to festive occasions. Tea is sol- 
 emnly drunk on serious celebrations, with squibs to 
 follow. Thus, for instance, at the funeral of a Bud- 
 dhist 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. While the ceremonies, prelim- 
 inary to the interment are proceeding, a servant 
 enters the temple, and hands tea round to the rever- 
 end gentlemen who are officiating! The interment 
 usually takes place in the morning, and it is numer- 
 ously attended; but if, as the long procession is 
 
64 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 dé&euner, do they return to carry the corse 
 to its final resting-place, and fire no end of squibs 
 over it, in testimony of their affliction. Which done, 
 more refreshment 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 4d. !” 
 COREE 
 
 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 
 introduction ; 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 df the fifteenth century — Sher- 
 baddin — asserts, that the first man who drank coffee 
 was a certain Muphti of Aden, who lived in the ninth 
 century of the Hegira, about a.p. 1500. The popu- 
 lar tradition is, that the superior of a Dervish com- 
 munity, observing the effects of coffee-berries when 
 eaten by some goats, rendering them much more 
 lively and skittish than before, prescribed it for the 
 brotherhood, in order to cure them of drowsiness and 
 indolence, 
 
BREAKFAST 6s 
 
 It was originally known by the name of cahuz or 
 kauht,—an orthography which comes near to that 
 of the ingenious town-councillor of Leeds, who, writ- 
 ing out a bill of fare for a public breakfast, contrived 
 to spell “coffee” without employing a single letter 
 that occurs in that word, —to wit, kawphy ! 
 
 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 endur- 
 ingly flourished. In 1652, a Greek, in the service of 
 an English Turkey merchant, opened a house in 
 London. “I have discovered his hand-bill,” says 
 Mr. Disraeli, “in which he sets forth the virtue of 
 the coffee drink, first publiquely made and sold in 
 England, by Pasqua Rosee, of St. Michael’s Alley, 
 Cornhill, at the sign of his own head.” Mr. Peter 
 Cunningham cites a MS. of Oldys in his possession, 
 in which some fuller details of much interest are 
 given. Oldys says: “The first use of coffee in Eng- 
 land was known in 1657, when Mr. Daniel Edwards, 
 a Turkey merchant, brought from Smyrna to Lon- 
 don one Pasqua Rosee, a Ragusan youth, who pre- 
 pared this drink 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, Corn- 
 hill, But they separating, Pasqua kept in the house ; 
 and he who had been his partner obtained leave to 
 
66 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 pitch a tent, and sell the liquor in St. Michael’s 
 churchyard.” 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 patronised, 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 (Payn- 
 ter), who soon learnt the mystery, and in four years 
 set up for himself. The coffee-houses soon became 
 numerous: the principal were Farres’s, the Rainbow 
 at the Inner-Temple Gate, and John’s, in Fuller’s 
 Rents. “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 
 considered as belomging to the idle and dissipated 
 classes; and the reputation was not altogether un- 
 deserved. Respectable people denounced the coffee- 
 drinking evils, illustriously obscure and loyal people 
 dreaded the politics that were discussed at the drink- 
 ing, and tipsy satirists hurled strong contempt and 
 weak verse at the new-fangled fashion of abandoning 
 Canary wine for the Arabian infusion. 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 drink- 
 
BREAKFAST : 67 
 
 ers, and intimated that the indulgence of coffee-drink- 
 ing would in time deteriorate, if not destroy, the 
 human race; but the imbibers heeded not the com- 
 plaint, their answer to which was that of Béranger’s 
 gay marital philosopher : 
 
 « Nous laisserions finir le monde, 
 Si nos femmes le voulaient bien.” 
 
 While the ladies, through their poetical represent- 
 atives, 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 appren- 
 tices, 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 dis- 
 cussion 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 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 prob- 
 ably not in the true vein to decide critically that 
 
68 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 night; for his pretty maid 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 “ con- 
 fidence.” 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 advantages 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 birthplace, if we may so 
 speak, of the coffee-tree. Pietro de la Vallé intro- 
 duced it into Italy, La Royne 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 really what some 
 have supposed it to have been, —the black broth of 
 the Lacedazmonians, — 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 footboys, gold-fringed napkins and pages, coffee 
 wreathing with smoke, and Ganymedes wreathed with 
 garlands, the first all 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 taverns as wine, beer, and smoking. 
 It would have inevitably been abandoned to coarse 
 
BREAKFAST 69 
 
 appetites only, but for Francois Procope, a Sicilian, 
 who, in the Rue de |’Ancienne Comédie, exactly 
 opposite to the old playhouse in the Faubourg St. 
 Germain, opened an establishment expressly for the 
 sale of coffee, but with such innocent additional arti- 
 cles as ices, lemonade, and the like harmless appli- 
 ances, to make pleasant the seasons in their change. 
 The Café Procope became the immediate resort of all 
 the wits, philosophers, and refined voués of Paris. 
 There Rousseau 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 con- 
 test with Palissot and Freron. The Café Procope 
 was the morning journal, the foreign news-mart, the 
 exchange, — literary, witty, and emphatically charm- 
 ing. 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 letters; and 
 thence Dorat addressed his amorous missives to 
 Mlle. Saunier. There Marmontel praised Clairon, 
 and the Marquis de Biévre 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 still held in Paris, and the 
 crowds which still wait on “ Andromaque,” sufficiently 
 belie the famous prophecy of Madame de Sévigné, 
 that “coffee and Racine would have their day.” The 
 dark infusion reigns without a rival, the demz-tasse 
 follows dinner oftener than “grace,” Rachel helps 
 to keep Racine alive, and caf¢, in its turn, has the 
 
70 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 reputation of being one of the favourite stimulants of 
 the great ¢tragédienne. | 
 
 With regard to the making of coffee, there is no 
 doubt that the Turkish method of pounding the 
 coffee in a mortar is infinitely superior to grinding 
 it in a mill, as with us. But after either method the 
 process recommended by M. Soyer may be advan- 
 tageously adopted; namely: “Put two ounces of 
 ground coffee into a stewpan, 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 Sy pass it peniepast” a 
 cloth, warm again, and serve.’ 
 
 The chemist Laplace explained to Napoleon the 
 results 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 powdered sugar?” “Sire,” said 
 the sage, “there exist three substances, whose ele- 
 ments are precisely the same; namely, sugar, gum, 
 and starch. They only differ under certain condi- 
 tions, 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 ob- 
 served.” 
 
 Medical men are widely at issue as to the merits 
 of coffee. All, 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 authorised to attribute the lucidity 
 
BREAKFAST a1 
 
 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 simply a painless 
 vigilance; but, if often repeated, it may be exceed- 
 ingly prejudicial. Brillat de Savarin illustrates the 
 power of coffee by 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 into a consumption. 
 
 Taken immediately after dinner, coffee aids the 
 dyspeptic, 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. Café au Jatt, 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 Dutch- 
 man, 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 Café Procope, was 
 “ choca,’ —a mixture of coffee (with milk) and 
 chocolate. The Emperor Napoleon was as fond 
 of the same mixture as he was of Chambertin; and, 
 in truth, I do not know a draught which so perfectly 
 
72 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 consumed 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 Ques- 
 tion”’ should deprive it of the facilities for procuring 
 the berry as heretofore, is gravely consulting as to 
 whether asparagus coffee may be a beverage likely 
 to be acceptable as a substitute for the much prized 
 “ demi-tasse.” 
 
 CHOCOLATE 
 
 FERDINAND CoRTEz went to Mexico in search of 
 gold; but the first discovery he made was of choco- 
 late. The discovery was not welcomed ecclesias- 
 tically, 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; andin England Roger North angrily 
 asserted, that “the use of coffee-houses seems much 
 improved by a new invention, called ‘chocolate- 
 houses,’ for the benefit of rooks and cullies of qual- 
 
BREAKFAST 73 
 
 ity, where gambling is added to all 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 in- 
 fluenced 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 them- 
 selves of some convenience from them of meeting for 
 short despatches, and passing evenings with small 
 expenses.’ Of what chiefly recommended these 
 places, the stern 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 with sugar and cmnamon. 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 chocolate is entirely owing to the oil 
 or butter of cacao which it contains. Cacao-nibs, the 
 best form of taking this production, are the seeds 
 roughly crushed. When the seed is crushed be- 
 tween 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 nutritious and easy of digestion? The 
 
 
 
74 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 “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 
 chocolate, 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 the practice. I am afraid there is 
 no chance of the fashion being introduced into Eng- 
 land. The advantages would be acknowledged ; but 
 then there would be a savour of popery detected about 
 it, that would inevitably cause its rejection. The 
 Church herself found a boon in this exquisite sup- 
 porter 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, “ Liguzdum non 
 Jrangit jejunium.” 
 
 Spain welcomed the gift of chocolate made her by 
 Mexico with as much enthusiasm as she did that of 
 gold by Peru; the metal she soon squandered, but 
 chocolate is still 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 refreshments be offered. The 
 Spanish monks sent presents of it to their brethren 
 in French monasteries ; and Anne of Austria, daugh- 
 ter of Philip II. of Spain, when she brought across 
 the Pyrenees her hand, but not her heart, to the 
 
BREAKFAST 76 
 
 unenergetic Louis XIII., brought a supply of choco- 
 late therewith; and henceforth it became an estab- 
 lished fact. In the days of the regency it was far 
 more commonly consumed than coffee; for it was 
 then taken as an agreeable aliment, while coffee was 
 still looked upon as a somewhat strange beverage, 
 but certainly akin to luxury. In the opinion of Lin- 
 nzus it must have surpassed all other nutritious 
 preparations, or that naturalist would hardly have 
 conferred upon it, as he did, the proud name of 
 Theobroma, “food for the gods!” 
 
 Invalids will 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 chocolate as a daily meal. It is a highly 
 concentrated aliment ; and all such cease to act nutri- 
 tiously if taken into constant use. 
 
 We will now look into some of those famous re- 
 sorts of bygone days, where coffee and chocolate 
 were prepared, and wit was bright and spontaneous. 
 
The Old Coftee-Houses 
 
 Tue Grecian appears to have been the oldest of 
 the better-known coffee-houses, and to have lasted 
 the longest. It was opened by Constantine, a Gre- 
 cian, “living in Threadneedle 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 toward the middle of the nineteenth century, 
 namely, in 1843, when the Grecian Coffee-house, 
 then in Devereux Court, Strand, where it had existed 
 for very many years, was converted into the “ Grecian 
 Chambers,” or lodgings for bachelors. 
 
 Constantine not only sold “the right Turkey cof- 
 fee berry, or chocolate,” but gave instructions how 
 to “prepare the said liquors gratis.” The Grecian 
 was the resort rather of the learned than the dissi- 
 pated. The antiquarians sat at its tables; and, de- 
 spising the news of the day, discussed the events of 
 the Trojan War, and similar lively, but remote mat- 
 ters. 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. 
 76 
 
THE OLD COFFEE- HOUSES ui 
 
 Whatever the accent ought to have been, the quarrel 
 was acute, and its conclusion grave. The scholars 
 rushed into Devereux Court, drew their swords, and, 
 as one was run through the body and killed on the 
 spot, it is to be 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 
 patronised the Grecian; and there were to be found 
 the Committee of the Royal Society, and Oxford pro- 
 fessors, enjoying their leisure and hot cups, after 
 philosophical 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 intrusive and 
 unwelcome strangers. The club, with its ballot-box 
 to settle elections of members, was the natural result. 
 
 William 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 Russell 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 
 
78 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Will’s,’ and by relating “two or three second-hand 
 sayings.” It was at Will’s that Dryden “ peda- 
 gogued” without restraint, accepted flattery without 
 a blush, and praised with happy complacency the per- 
 fection of his own works. He was the great attrac-. 
 tion 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 
 early, when the 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, 
 1663-64, says that he stepped in on his way to fetch 
 his wife, “where Dryden the poet (I knew at Cam- 
 bridge), and all the wits of the town, and Harris the 
 player, and Mr. Hoole of our college. And had I 
 had time then, as I could at other times, it will be 
 good coming thither; for there I perceive 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, 
 without its pains. Occasionally, a daring stranger, 
 like young Lockier, raw from the country, would 
 object to the dicta of the despot. Thus, when Dry- 
 den praised his ‘Mac Flecknoe,” as the first satire 
 “written in heroics,” the future dean timidly sug- 
 gested that the “ Lutrin” and the “ Secchia Rapita” 
 ‘were so written; and Dryden acknowledged 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 per- 
 mitted to dip their fingers into the poet’s snuff-box, 
 
nebyiGd 
 swords TS Qatbiwind ss mos sens eototS 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Will's,” and ts relating ufwo ¢ or A | 
 sayings.” It was at Will’s that Dryden 
 gogued” without restraint, accepted flattery witho 
 a blush, and praised with happy complacency: the pe 
 fection of his own works, He was the great atth 
 tion of the place, and his presence there of an evening 
 filled the room with admiring listeners, or indis 
 adulators. _ Dryden had the good sense to retin 
 early, when the tables were full, and he knew he hi 
 made a favourable impression, which the compat 
 might improve in his absence, Addisen, more pit 
 to jolly fellowship, sat late with those who tarvied 
 drink, Pepys, recording his first visit, m ¥ Taary 
 1663-64, says that he stepped in on his way to é 
 his wife, “where Dryden the poet (1 knew at © 
 bridge), and all the wits of the town, and Harris tl 2, 
 player, and Mr. Hoole of our college, And had & 
 had time then, as I could at other times; it) ill be 
 go A coming thither; for there I perceime- 
 itty and pleasant discourse. But I coukt het y 
 aa as it was late, they were all ready to som 
 The reign of D Ge len at Will's was not, 
 without its pas. Occasionally, a daniageg we: eT; 
 like young Likert, fam Pee tie CONTR: a ; — 
 object to the dicta @ tie Cire pant, Thes, ¥ . Dry- 
 den praised his “* Mac rh eh aretin as the frst 
 
 ‘were so written; and vane sckcoweaall 
 
 corrector was right. The London beaux would b 
 been afraid, or incapable, of setting Dryden ry 
 they were sufficiently happy if they were Bab] 
 
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THE OLD COFFEE-HOUSES 79 
 
 and, at a separate table, listen to the criticisms 
 uttered by the graver authorities who were seated 
 round 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 
 “specialty” of Will’s Coffee-house was _ poetry. 
 Songs, epigrams, and satires circulated from table 
 to table; and the wits judged plays, even Dryden’s, 
 until the playwrights began to satirise 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 practice; “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 been introduced by 
 Sir Charles Wogan, though, years before, in his 
 youth, he had been proud to follow old Wycherly 
 about from coffee-house to coffee-house; and then 
 Button’s attracted the better portion of the com- 
 pany, and left Will’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 Russell 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 
 
80 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 St. James’s Place, where his breakfast-table was 
 attended by such men as Steele, Budgell, Philips, 
 Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett, with some off 
 whom he generally dined at a tavern, — he was to be 
 found of an evening, until 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, 
 perhaps, 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 Buttonians were famous for the fierceness of 
 their criticism, but it appears to have been altogether 
 a better organised establishment than Will’s; for 
 while the parish registers show that the landlord of 
 the latter was fined for misdemeanour, 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 con- 
 tributions for the editor, is now at Woburn, in the 
 possession of the Duke of Bedford. 
 
 Of coffee-houses that went by the name of “Tom’s”’ 
 there were three. At the one in Birchin Lane, Gar- 
 rick occasionally appeared among the young mer- 
 chants; and Chatterton, before despair slew even 
 ambition, more than once dined. At the second 
 
THE OLD COFFEE - HOUSES 81 
 
 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 Will's, and 
 Addison at Button’s; but his imperious rule was 
 often overthrown by “flat rebellion.” Zhe Tom’s 
 was opposite Button’s, and stood on the north side of 
 Great Russell 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 Will’s for writ- 
 ing a ‘“‘posie for a ring,’ so at Tom’s Mr. Ince was 
 held in due respect, for the reason that he had com- 
 posed a solitary paper for the Sectator. 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, only four years 
 later, an enlarged room for cards and conversation 
 was constructed, may serve to show by what sort of 
 people, and for what particular purposes, Tom’s was 
 patronised. 
 
 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 toward Bagshot. 
 Before the establishment was burned down, in 1733, 
 
82 | TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 fixedness of 
 fashion that has never swerved. Gallantry, pleasure, 
 and entertainment were the characteristics of the 
 place. The celebrated Lord Chesterfield there 
 “oamed, and pronounced witticisms among the boys 
 of quality.” Steele dated all his love-news in the 
 Tatler from White’s. It was stigmatised as “the 
 common rendezvous 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, like 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 for his death inter- 
 posed, and said it would affect the fairness of the 
 bet ! 
 
 Some of the old rules of the houses are rich in 
 “table traits.” Thus, in 1736, every member was 
 required to pay an extra guinea a year “toward hav- 
 ing a good cook.’”’ The supper was on table 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 liquor, biscuits, 
 
. 
 
 THE OLD COFFEE- HOUSES 83 
 
 oranges, apples, and olives included), to be on table 
 at six o'clock; the bill to be brought at nine.” 
 “That no hot. suppers be provided, unless particu- 
 larly 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, etc. Each person 
 partaking thereof to pay 4s., malt liquors only in- 
 cluded.” 
 
 Colley Cibber was a member, but, as it would 
 seem, an honorary one only, who dined with the 
 manager of the club, and was tolerated afterward by 
 the company for the sake of his wit. Mr. Cunning- 
 ham states, that at the supper given by the club in 
 1814, at Burlington House, to the allied sovereigns, 
 there were covers laid for 2,400 people, and that the 
 cost was “ 49,849 2s.6d.” “Three weeks after this 
 (July 6, 1814), the club gave a dinner to the Duke of 
 Wellington, which cost 42,840 10s. 9d.” The dinner 
 given, in the month of February of the present year, 
 to Prince George of Cambridge, was one not to wel- 
 come a victorious warrior, but to cheer an untried, 
 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 
 establishment as a club can be said to be. 
 
 The politicians had their coffée-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 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, 
 
84 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 seated in a noisy coffee-room, at little tables covered 
 by small napkins, supping off cold meat or sand- 
 wiches, and finishing with strong punch and confused 
 politics. 
 
 The St. James’s Coffee-house ranked Addison, 
 Swift, Steele, and, subsequently, Goldsmith and Gar- 
 rick, among its adztwés. It had a more solid practi- 
 cal reputation than any of the other coffee-houses ; 
 for within its walls Goldsmith’s poem of “ Retalia- 
 tion” originated. But politics was its “staple;” 
 and poor politicians 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 
 accustomed to sit and watch the line of Bourbon, 
 within the steam of the great coffee-pot, were doubt- 
 less punctual in their payments ere they could have 
 earned the privilege. And yet their poetical acumen 
 was often more correct than their political discern- 
 ment; 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 Bed- 
 ford, in Covent Garden, was probably the first ; but, 
 for good fellowship, it equalled any of the more exclu- 
 sive houses ; for Garrick, and Quin, and Murphy, and 
 Foote, were of the company. Wit was the serious 
 occupation of all its members; and it never gave 
 any of them serious trouble to produce in abundance. 
 Quin, above all, was brilliant in the double achieve- 
 ments of Epicureanism and sparkling repartee. Gar- 
 rick, in allusion to the sentiments often expressed 
 
THE OLD COFFEE - HOUSES 85 
 
 here by his brother actor, wrote the epigrammatic 
 lines, supposed to be uttered by Quin, in reference 
 to a discussion on embalming the dead, and which 
 will be found in a subsequent chapter, under the 
 head of “ Table Traits of the Last Century.” 
 
 AZsopus, the actor, who was to Cicero what Quin 
 was to George the Third, —he “taught the boy to 
 speak,” — A¢tsopus was as great an epicure, in his 
 way, as Quin himself. It is related of him, that one 
 day he dined off a costly dish of birds, the whole of 
 which, when living, had been taught either to sing 
 or speak. Atsopus 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 all 
 the way! When the fish in question was in season, 
 his first inquiry of the servant who used to awaken 
 him was, “Is there any mullet in 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 Roach, 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 sometimes was to be found 
 within these houses. At Batem’s, the city house, 
 patronised by Blackmore, the brother of Lord South- 
 well was to be found enacting the parasite, and exist- 
 ing by the aid of men who thought his wit worth 
 
86 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 paying for. Child’s Coffee-house, St. Paul’s Church- 
 yard, was patronised by the clergy, who assembled 
 there, especially the younger clergy, in gowns, cas- 
 socks, and scarfs, smoked till they were invisible, 
 and obtained the honorary 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 and por- 
 ters 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 coffee. Foreign bankers and minis- 
 ters patronised Robin’s; the buyers and sellers of 
 stock collected at Jonathan’s; and the shipping in- 
 terest went, as now, to Lloyd’s. All these places 
 were in full activity of business and coffee-drinking 
 in the reign of Queen Anne. Finally, the lawyers 
 crowded Squire’s, in Fulwood’s Rents; 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 famil- 
 lar to many of us than their whereabout, but whose 
 connection 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 choco- 
 late was never such a solemnity in England as in 
 
THE OLD COFFEE - HOUSES 87 
 
 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 chocolate-pot, a third presented the cup, and a 
 fourth stood in waiting with a napkin! 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 privilege of being helpless. 
 
 The old coffee-houses were not simply resorts for 
 the critics, the politicians, and the fine gentlemen. 
 Gay, writing to Congreve, in 1715, says, “ Amidst 
 clouds of 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 Tit- 
 comb 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 till two o’clock, over 
 Burgundy and Champagne.”’ Ten years before, the 
 coffee-house and London life had less charms for 
 him. Witness the paragraph in the letter to Wych- 
 erly, 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 differ- 
 ence than this betwixt the common town wits and 
 the downright country fools, that the first are partly 
 
83 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 post- 
 script to Congreve, in which he boasted of sitting over 
 wine during the “wee short hours ayont the twal’,” 
 as Burns 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 your 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 
 inhabitants. The universities had their coffee-houses, 
 as London had ; and the company there, albeit a/umnz 
 of the various colleges, do not appear to have been 
 remarkable for refinement. Doctor Ewins, at Cam- 
 bridge, in the last century, acquired the ill-will both 
 of town and gown for exercising a sort of censorship 
 over their conduct. According to Cole, the anti- 
 quary, they needed it; for he says, with especial 
 allusion to the undergraduates, that “they never 
 were more licentious, riotous, and debauched. 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 adver- 
 saries, was in the habit of visiting the Union Coffee- 
 house, opposite St. Radigund’s (or Jesus) Lane, —a 
 fashionable rendezvous. He was there one night 
 about Christmas, 1771, or January, 1772, “when 
 some fellow commoners, who owed him a grudge, 
 
THE OLD COFFEE - HOUSES 89 
 
 sitting in the box hear him, in order to affront him, 
 pretended to call their dog ‘ Squintum,’ and frequently 
 repeated the name very loudly in the coffee-house; 
 and, in their joviality, swore many oaths, and caressed 
 their dog. Doctor Ewins, as did his father, squinted 
 very much, as did Whitefield, the Methodist teacher, 
 who was vulgarly called Doctor Squintum, from the 
 blemish in his eyes. Doctor Ewins was sufficiently 
 mortified to be so affronted in public. However, he 
 carefully marked down the number of oaths sworn 
 by these gentlemen, whom he made to pay severely 
 the penalty of five shillings 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 all who would accept 
 a copy, and from which the following verses are ex- 
 tracted. 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 blockheads in the Town, 
 That strut and bully up and down, 
 And bring complaints against the Gown, 
 There’s none like Doctor Squintum. 
 
 “ With gimlet eyes and dapper wig, 
 This Justice thinks he looks so big: 
 A most infernal stupid gig 
 Is this same Doctor Squintum. 
 
 ‘‘ What pedlar can forbear to grin, 
 Before his Worship that has been, 
 To think what folly lurks within 
 This Just Ass Doctor Squintum?” 
 
go TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Old René d’Anjou used to say, that, as soon as a 
 man had breakfasted, it was his bounden duty to 
 devote himself to the great business of the day, — 
 think of dinner. We will 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 precedence of “dinners,” — the 
 cooks by whom dinners are prepared. 
 
The French Cafés 
 
 In the reign of Louis XV. there were not less than 
 six hundred cafés in Paris. London, at the same 
 period, could not count as many dozens. Under 
 Louis Napoleon, the cafés have reached to the amaz- 
 ing number of between three and four thousand. 
 All these establishments acknowledge the Café Pro- 
 cope as the founder of the dynasty, although, indeed, 
 there were coffee-vendors in Paris before the time of 
 the accomplished Sicilian. “ Vixerunt fortes ante 
 Agamemnona.” 
 
 The consumption of coffee in Paris, at the period 
 of the breaking out of the Revolution, was something 
 -enormous. The French West Indian Islands fur- 
 nished eighty millions of pounds annually, and this 
 was irrespective of what was derived from the East. 
 The two sources together were not sufficient to 
 supply the kingdom. Thence adulterations, fortunes 
 to the adulterators, and that supremacy of chicory, 
 which has destroyed the well-earned reputation of 
 French coffee. 
 
 I have alreadysspoken of the Café 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 
 
 91 + 
 
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 seated at his usual table, an officer of the King’s 
 Body Guard entered, sat down, and ordered “a cup 
 of coffee, with milk, and a roll,” adding, “It will 
 serve me for a dinner!” At this Saint Foix remarked 
 aloud, that “a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, 
 was a confoundedly poor dinner.” The officer re- 
 monstrated; 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 per- 
 sons present adjourned as spectators of a fight, which 
 ended by Saint Foix receiving a wound in the arm. 
 “That is all very well,” said the wounded combatant ; 
 “but I call you to witness, gentlemen, that I am still 
 profoundly convinced, that a cup of coffee, with milk, 
 and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner!” At this 
 moment, the principals were arrested, and carried 
 before the Duke de Noailles, in whose presence 
 Saint Foix, without waiting to be questioned, said, 
 “ Monseigneur, I had not the slightest intention 
 of offending the gallant officer, who, I doubt not, is 
 an honourable man; but your Excellency can never 
 prevent my asserting, that a cup of coffee, with milk, 
 and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner.” ‘ Why, 
 so it is,’ said the duke. “Then I am not in the 
 wrong,” remarked Saint Foix; ‘anda cup of coffee,” 
 —at these words magistrates, delinquents, and audi- 
 tory 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 Café Février. He was seated at dinner 
 
THE FRENCH CAFES 93 
 
 there, when an ex-garde-du-corps, named Paris, ap- 
 proached 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 like those with which Delille sub- 
 sequently sang the virtues of the tree. The French 
 coffee-houses at once gained the popularity to which 
 they aspired. To Pascal succeeded Maliban, and 
 then Gregoire opened his establishment in the Rue 
 Mazarin, in the vicinity of players and playgoers. 
 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 café 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 Pro- 
 cope, who was the first, however, who made a fortune 
 by his speculation. The Quai de |’Ecole had its 
 establishment (the Café Manoury), which I believe 
 still exists, as does the Café de la Régence, which 
 dates from the time of the Regent Duke of Orléans, 
 and where Rousseau used to play at chess, and 
 appeared in his Armenian costume. It was also fre- 
 quented, zzcog., by the Emperor Joseph. The oldest 
 café in the Palais Royal is the celebrated Café de 
 Foy, 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 
 
94 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 going on, and, in his impatience, he flung a wet 
 colouring brush from him, which struck the ceiling 
 and left a spot. He immediatcly ascended the 
 - Jadder, and with a touch of his finger converted the 
 stain into a swallow; and his handiwork was still to 
 be seen on the ceiling, when I was last in Paris. It 
 was before the Café de Foy that Camille Desmoulins 
 harangued the mob, in July, 1789, with such effect, 
 
 that they took up arms, destroyed the Bastile, and 
 inaugurated the Revolution. 
 
 The Café de Valois will 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 dis- 
 cussed politics, especially at the period of the Resto- 
 ration. The Café 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 Café du 
 Bosquet, and the second the Café des Mille Colonnes, 
 Each was celebrated for the magnificent attractions 
 of the presiding lady, —the delle Limonadiére, as she 
 was at first called, or the dame du comptoir, as refine- 
 ment chose to name her. Madame Romain, at the 
 Mille Colonnes, had a longer reign than her rival; 
 and the lady was altogether a more remarkable 
 person. In the reign of Louis XVIII., her seat was 
 composed of the throne of Jerome, King of West- 
 phalia, — which was sold by auction on the bank- 
 ruptcy of his Majesty. Madame Romain descended 
 from it, like a weary queen, to take refuge in a nun- 
 nery; and, curiously enough, the ex-king has re- 
 
THE FRENCH CAFES 95 
 
 covered his “throne,” which now figures, in the 
 reduced aspect of a simple armchair, in the salon of 
 his residence at the Palais Royal. After the abdica- 
 tion of Madame Romain, the Mille Colonnes endeav- 
 oured to secure success by very meretricious means. 
 Girls of a brazen 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 Café Chrétien was once thoroughly Jacobin, 
 so the Café 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 Allies were at Paris, 
 it was hardly safe for the officers to enter the Café 
 Lemblin, and many scenes of violence are described 
 as having occurred there, and many a duel was fought 
 with fatal effect, after a café dispute between French 
 and foreign officers, —and all for national honour. 
 The Bourbon officers were far more insulting in the 
 cafés to the ex-imperial “braves,” than the latter 
 were to the invading captains, — and they generally 
 paid dearly for their temerity. Finally,—for to 
 name all the cafés in Paris would require an encyclo- 
 pzedia, — it is worthy of notice that Tortoni’s, which 
 is now a grave adjunct to the Bourse, first achieved 
 success by the opposite process of billiard-playing. 
 A broken-down provincial advocate, Spolar of 
 Rennes, came to Paris with a bad character, and a 
 capital cue; and the latter he handled so wonder- 
 fully at the Café Tortoni, that all Paris went to 
 witness his feats. Talleyrand patronised him, backed 
 his playing, and gained no inconsiderable sum by the 
 
96 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 cue-driving of Spolar, whose star culminated when 
 he was appointed “ Professor of Billiards 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 cafés which 
 strikes an observer as he first contemplates it. I 
 allude to the intensity, gravity, and extent of the 
 domino-playing. A quartet party will spend half 
 the evening at this mystery, with nothing to enliven 
 it but the gentlest of conversation, and the lightest 
 of beer, or a simple fetzt verre. The government 
 wisely thinks that a grave domino-player can be 
 given to neither immorality nor conspiracies. Buta 
 British government proudly scorns to tolerate such 
 insipidities in Britons. British tradesmen, at the 
 end of the day, may be perfectly idle, spout blas- 
 phemy, and get as drunk as they please, in any 
 London tavern, provided they do not therewith break 
 the peace; but, let the reprobates only remain obsti- 
 nately sober, and play at dominoes, then they offend 
 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 edifica- 
 tion the gin-palaces, which invite not in vain; but if 
 one of these same classes should, on the same Sun- 
 day evening, knock at the religiously closed door of 
 a so-called free library, the secretary's maid who 
 answers the appeal would be pale with horror at the 
 atrocity of the applicant. And what is the bewil- 
 dered 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 
 
THE FRENCH CAFES 97 
 
 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 sighingly 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 
 Shakespeare; namely, by putting a strange face on 
 their own perfection. 
 
The Ancient Cook, and His Art 
 
 It is an incontestable fact, that he who lives 
 soberly does not depend upon his cook for the 
 pleasure which he derives from his repast. Never- 
 theless, the cook is one of the most important of 
 personages; and even appetite, without him, would 
 not be of the value that it is at present. A great 
 artiste knows his vocation. When the cook of Louis 
 XVIII. was reproached, by 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 divi- 
 sion 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 
 Coquus Gloriosus, in a fragment of Philemon, shows 
 us what these artists were in the very olden time. 
 He swears by Minerva that he is delighted 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 delicacy, that, 
 
 98 
 
THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART 99 
 
 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 it from one another, and a running struggle was 
 kept up around the board to get possession of this 
 exquisitely prepared morceau. ‘And yet,” says the 
 cook, “I had nothing better to exhibit my talent 
 upon than a wretched river fish, nourished in mud. 
 But, O 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 Nep- 
 tune serves to the gods in Olympus, why, the guests 
 would have thought they had become divinities them- 
 selves. Yes,” adds the culinary boaster, “I think I 
 may say that I have discovered the principle of im- 
 mortality, 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 delight 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 wear- 
 ing an apron for a couple of years. My study of the 
 art has not been superficial: it has been the work of 
 
100 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 
 affliction department. While they are yet in their 
 mourning attire, I lift the lids of my 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 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 frequented by the sirens. It will be impos- 
 sible 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, oom out the irresistible scent by plugging 
 their noses.’ 
 
 Posidippus shows us a ge master cook in- 
 structing 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 impudence. ‘ Boast away,” 
 he says, “and never be tired of it] ) Poreaseuc 
 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 
 
THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART IOI 
 
 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 
 pleasure does not depend solely on those who exer- 
 cise 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, un- 
 questionably, among the Sybarites, — the people to 
 whom the crumpling of a rose under the side on 
 which they lay, 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 execu- 
 tion! 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 gra- 
 cious!” and fainted away. 
 
102 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Athenzeus, borrowing, if I remember rightly, from 
 one of the authors whose works were in that Alexan- 
 drian library, the destruction of which by the Caliph 
 Omar, Doctor Cumming tells us in his “ Finger of 
 God,” is a circumstance at which he is rather glad 
 than sorry, Athenzus 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. Hav- 
 ing tasted the national diet, he feebly uttered the 
 Sybaritic expression for “Stap my vitals!” and 
 convulsively remarked, that “he no longer wondered 
 why the Lacedzemonians sought death in battle, see- 
 ing 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 country, and ° 
 the cook who had distinguished himself was invested 
 with a golden crown, and an opera ticket, that is, free 
 admission to those 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 indifferent reputation, and thoroughly de- 
 served what they enjoyed. The comic Dionysius 
 introduces one of the succulent brotherhood, im- 
 pressing upon a young apprentice the propriety of 
 stealing in houses where they were hired to cook 
 dinners. The instruction is worthy of Professor 
 Fagan of the Saffron Hill University. “Whatever 
 you can prig,” says the elder rogue, “belongs to 
 yourself, as long as you are in the house. When 
 
THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART 103 
 
 you get past the porter into the street, it then be- 
 comes my property. So fake away! (Bade detp’ duc) 
 and look out for unconnected trifles.”’ 
 
 And yet Athenzus asserts that nothing has so 
 powerfully 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 proposition ; 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 ap- 
 petite, and an irreproachable digestion. 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, Lacedzemon 
 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 Romans, 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 few 
 who would have exchanged their liberty for such a 
 post and chains. And who dare affirm that the 
 coguus 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 
 
104 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 fires and lay cloths with the dexterity 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 civilised beings should, it is thereby further inti- 
 mated that good eating should be followed by good 
 drinking. 
 
 We have heard of cooks in monasteries who made 
 dissertations 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 fash- 
 ion to please their several admirers. Artemidorus 
 was the Doctor Johnson of his own art, and wrote a 
 kitchen lexicon for the benefit of students. Sicily 
 especially was celebrated for its literary cooks, and 
 Mithocecus wrote a treatise on the art; while Arches- 
 tratus, the Syracusan, looking into causes and effects, 
 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 enjoy- 
 ments. 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 sat- 
 isfy 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 piece of rough fish-skin ; 
 and his taking up hot viands with his hand, like that 
 of Gétz von Berlichingen, encased in a glove, is cited 
 
THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART 105 
 
 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 shell. 
 
 Then came the age when, if men had not appe- 
 tites 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 indigestion. The inventor of a 
 new dish had a patent for its exclusive preparation 
 fora year. But ere that time it had probably been 
 forgotten in something more novel discovered by a 
 Sicilian rival; for the Greeks looked on Sicily as the 
 Parisians of the last century used to look on Langue- 
 doc, —as the only place on earth where cooks were 
 born and bred, and were worth the paying. The 
 artists of both countries, and of the opposite ages 
 mentioned, were especially skilled in the preparation 
 of materials 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 sup- 
 plies 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 artifi- 
 cial sirlom 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 esti- 
 
106 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 mation in which the Sicilian cooks were held, who 
 prayed to her for inspiration. Her ministers were 
 paid salaries as rich as the sauces they invented. 
 Something like 4800 per annum formed the honora- 
 rium of the learned and juicy gentleman. But he was 
 not always to be had, even at that price; and the dis- 
 gusted 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 
 Sicily, 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 called 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 Lucullus 
 spent 41,000 sterling on a snug dinner for three, — 
 himself, Czesar, 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 sacrilegious feeder up- 
 wards of £3,000 each, but the bills were discharged 
 by a levy on the public pocket. When Tiberius 
 ordered several thousands sterling to be bestowed on 
 the author of a piece wherein everything eatable was 
 made to speak wittily, the author was really paid out 
 of the popular pocket; and when Geta insisted on 
 
THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART 107 
 
 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 per- 
 son who troubled himself about the payment for 
 such extravagance. 
 
 The cooks of such epicures must necessarily, how- 
 ever, have been as despotic in the kitchen as their 
 lord was in the saloon. The slaves there, who hur- 
 ried to and fro, bearing their tributes of good things 
 from the market-place, or distributing them according 
 to his bidding, obeyed the cook’s very nod, nay, antic- 
 ipated his very wishes. They were, in fact, the 
 ministers of an awful sovereign. The cook was their 
 lord paramount. The stewards possessed 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 arvchimagirus, as he 
 was called, could overlook all 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 com- 
 plete it, there was only wanted a crash of discordant 
 music to accompany the rapid descent of the gigantic 
 spoon upon the skull 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!” 
 
108 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Great Roman kitchens were as well worth seeing, 
 and perhaps were as often inspected by the curious 
 and privileged, 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 
 consisted in serving up an entire pig at once roasted 
 and boiled. The elder Disraeli has shown from 
 Archestratus how this was done. ‘The animal had 
 been bled to death by a wound under the shoulder, 
 whence, after copious effusion, the master-cook ex- 
 tracted 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 Euclio says to Congrio, the 
 cook, “ Ad tres viros jam ego deferam tuum nomen,” 
 “T’ll go and inform against you to the magistrates.” 
 “Why so?” asks Congrio. “Because you carry a 
 knife,” “Quza cultrum habes.’ ‘ Well,” says the 
 artist, standing on his rights, ‘‘cocum decet,” “it is the 
 
THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART 10g 
 
 sign of my profession.” From another of the many 
 cooks of Plautus we learn, in the “ Menzchmei,” 
 that, when a parasite was at table, his appetite was 
 reckoned as equivalent to that of eight guests; and 
 when Cylindrus is- ordered to prepare a dinner for 
 Menzchmus, 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 decem, 
 Nam parasitus octo hominum munus facile fungitur.” 
 
 The musicians would appear to have lived as pleas- 
 antly as the parasites. Simo remarks to Tranio, in 
 the “ Mostellaria,”’ that he lives on the best the cooks 
 and vintners can procure for him, —a real fiddler’s 
 destiny : 
 
 ‘¢ Musice hercle agitis etatem: ita ut vos decet. 
 
 Vino et victu, piscatu probe electili, 
 Vitam colitis.” 
 
 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 
 stealing was much the same as that enjoyed by their 
 Grecian brethren. The scene of the “Casina,” in- 
 deed, is in Athens; but Olympio utters a Roman 
 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: “ Udz sunt, duplice 
 damno dominos multant.” This is further proved by 
 the speech of Epidicus, in the comedy so called, 
 
IIo TABLE TRAITS 
 
 2 
 
 where that slave-cook speaks of his master’s purse 
 as if it were game, to disembowel which, he says, he 
 will use his professional knife: 
 
 «“ Acutum cultrum habeo, senis qui exenterem 
 Marsupium.” 
 
 We learn something of the pay of a cook from a 
 speech of one of the craft, in the “ Pseudolus.” 
 Ballio, seeing a single practitioner remaining in the 
 square to be hired, asks how it is that he has not 
 been engaged. ‘“ Eloguar,” says the cook, “here is 
 the reason: 
 
 ‘‘ He who, nowadays, 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 to-day. 
 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 
 Fling 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, 
 Sorrel, rochet, beet-root, leeks, and greens, 
 All go together, with a pound of benzoin, 
 And mustard ditto, that compels the tears 
 From 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 renew’d. 
 
THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART Ili 
 
 I season Neptune’s fishes with a juice 
 
 Made up of Cicilindrum, Muscadel, 
 
 Sipolindrum, and Sancapatides. 
 
 The odour of my mutton, nicely stuffed 
 
 With Cicimandrum, Nappalopsides, 
 
 And of Cataractaria a pinch, 
 
 Feeds 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 unpro- 
 nounceable of sauces that do not exist, the boaster 
 adds, that his fee is a crown, provided he is not over- 
 looked ; 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 do not know if cooks more especially used differ- 
 ent fingers in mingling their sauces, according as 
 they were employed on wedding banquets, martial 
 feasts, senatorial entertainments, a/ fresco déjeuners, 
 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. 
 
 I conclude with a remark that I hope will be grati- 
 fying 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 
 
Tz TABLE TRAITS 
 
 the ex-cook of the King of Sidon we perhaps owe 
 all 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 xoblesse de cuisine, which dates from the 
 Norman Conquest. When William, 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 ex- 
 quisite flavour, that William sent for the artist, and 
 inquired its name. “TI call it Dzllegrout,” said Teze- 
 lin, “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 Modern Cook, and His 
 
 Science 
 
 IF it were necessary that the cook of the ancient 
 world should be a Sicilian, and that the cuzsinter of 
 the ancient régime 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 da gueule who is a Gaul by birth, or 
 who has gone through his studies in the University 
 of French Kitchens. In England, it must be con- 
 fessed that great cooks have formed the exception 
 rather than the rule; and that our native culinary 
 literature, 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, 
 
 IT3 
 
114 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 mushrooms, and there is an anecdote 
 connected therewith that will bear repeating. “ Poor 
 Doctor Shaw,” writes Horace Walpole, “being 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 toadstools in the park did not escape scalp- 
 ing in this general measure. And a voice of lamen- 
 tation was heard at Ramah in Claremont, ‘Chloe’ 
 weeping for her mushrooms, 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 offered to prepare a fvicassée of 
 
THE MODERN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE 115 
 
 ostrich brains for the Northmen, were dismissed 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 Nor- 
 man, so does good cookery prevail over barbarous 
 appetites. The old cooks were a sacred race, whose 
 heirs took up the mission of their sires. This mis- 
 sion was so far triumphant, 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 ex- 
 panded tail, took the place, or appeared at the side, 
 of coarser viands. The dignity and the mirth of: 
 Charlemagne’s table 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 Bouillé, in his admirable work on the Dukes of 
 Guise, affirms that the good civilising custom had 
 fallen into disuse, but that a permanent improvement 
 was commenced 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 sover- 
 eign; 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 in- 
 tent.” The highest in rank did not disdain to super- 
 vise the kitchen ; they displayed their talents in the 
 
116 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 sublime disregard of expense. All the sump- 
 tuary laws of kings to restrain this household ex- 
 travagance were joyously evaded, and banquets 
 became deadly destructive to men’s estates. 
 
 The French kings granted corporate rights to the 
 different trades connected with the kitchen and the 
 table; and perhaps the most valued privilege was 
 that conceded by Charles IX. to the pastry-cooks, 
 who alone were permitted to make bread for the 
 service of the mass. 
 
 Montaigne, in his pleasant way, recounts a con- 
 versation he had with an Italian chef 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 gave me a lecture on the sci- 
 ence of eating, with a gravity and magisterial coun- 
 tenance 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 particularised 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 
 
 .  /-— ae 
 
THE MODERN.COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE 117 
 
 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 discoursing on the 
 government of an empire.” We see by this what 
 the “art de la gueule’’ was in the days of Charles 
 IX., whose mother, Catherine de Medicis, had intro- 
 duced it into France as a science whereby men 
 should enjoy life. The same lady introduced also 
 poisoning, as a science whereby men might be de- 
 prived of life. Her own career was full of opposing 
 facts like these, — facts which caused a poetic cook 
 to write the epitaph 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 brought 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, 
 reminds me that, for a gastronome, the cardinal was 
 singularly sanguinary in spirit. JI know no one to 
 compare with him, except Doctor 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 Inqui- 
 
118 TABLE TRAI$S 
 
 sition at Rome, at a time when the resources of the 
 state ran. low, he turned his private property 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 smell 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 burn 
 while they recited whole pages of ‘ Orlando Furioso.” 
 They were critics as well as cooks, and the kitchens 
 resounded 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 Caréme,” the French would not 
 allow that such an event authorised the artzste to be 
 dreaming over epics, when he should be wide-awake 
 to the working of his proper mystery. But the mys- 
 tery 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 Richelieu, the cacochymical temperament (as the 
 editor of the Almanach des Gourmands would call it) 
 of Louis XIII., and the ridiculous 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 
 
THE MODERN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE _ 119 
 
 honour! The king had come to dine with Condé; 
 but the cod had not arrived in time to be dressed for 
 the king, and thereupon the heroic artist fell upon his 
 sword, like an ancient Roman, and is immortalised 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 Muscovite 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. 
 Rather 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-six pounder, loaded by the Tsar for her destruc- 
 tion ? 
 
 The cooks “looked up” in the nights and suppers 
 of the regency, 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 recognised and esteemed 
 class in society, whose spoiled children they were ; 
 
120 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 and, in return, it was very like spoiled children 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 alchemists over alembics? It is to the nobility 
 and other distinguished 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 droll benefactors of man- 
 kind. 
 
 The Marquis de Béchamel immortalised 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 stomach 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 still, the 
 Duchess of Villeroy (Maréchale de Luxembourg), 
 produced, in her hours of reflection, the dish known 
 as the poulets a la Villeroy. They were eaten with. 
 bread @ la Régent, of which the author was the voué 
 Duke of Orléans. His too “well-beloved”’ daughter, 
 the Duchess of Berry, had a gastronomic turn of 
 mind, like her illustrious father. She was an epicu- 
 rean lady, who tasted of all the pleasures of life with- 
 out 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 j/ets de lapereau. The 
 
THE MODERN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE 121 
 
 gigot 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 Bellevue, by 
 the production of the filets de volatlle a la Bellevue. 
 The queen of Louis was more devout, but not less 
 epicurean, than his mistresses ; and the petztes bouchées 
 a la Reine, if they were not of her creating, were 
 named in honour of Maria Leczinska. Louis himself 
 had a contempt for female cooks; but Madame du 
 Barry had one so well-trained, that with a charming 
 dinner of coulis de faisans, croustades de la foie de 
 lottes, salmis de bécassine, pain de volaille a la 
 supréme, poularde au cresson, écrevisses au vin de 
 Sauterne, bisquets de péches au Noyau, and créme 
 de cerneaux, the king was so overcome with ecstasy, 
 that, after recovering from the temporary disgust he 
 experienced at hearing that it was the handiwork of a 
 woman, he consented to ennoble her by conferring 
 upon her the cordon bleu, — 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 off- 
 spring of a duke. The Bayonnotse, or the Mabonnotse 
 rather, recalls one of the victories of the Duke de 
 Richelieu ; and veau a la Montgolfier, well 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 masterpiece of the Italian confec- 
 
122 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 tioner 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, till, 
 an hour or so before dawn, it was hatched into reality, 
 when he rushed to the duke’s bedchamber, and, 
 ‘‘drawing Priam’s bed-curtains in the night,” an- 
 nounced to his startled Grace the achievement of a 
 new sorbet. 
 
 The ¢endrons d’agneaux au soleil, and the filets de 
 poulets a la Pompadour, were two of the dishes in- 
 vented by the famous lady of that name. The cavbon- 
 nade ala Soubise and the carré de veau a la Guemenée, 
 date, the first from the reign of Louis XV., the last 
 from that of Louis X VI., — periods when the people 
 were famishing. The Pompadour was a great patron 
 of the arts, and especially of the culinary art; and 
 the cuzsine des petits appartements, during her reign, 
 was at the very height of its savoury reputation. 
 The Prince of Soubise was a poor general, but a rich 
 glutton; and his son-in-law, the Prince de Guemenée, 
 was famous for his invention of various vagodts, his 
 inordinate extravagance, and his bankruptcy, with 
 liabilities against him amounting to twenty-eight 
 millions of francs. Madame la Maréchale de Mire- 
 poix was the authoress of cazlles a la Mirepoix ; and 
 her descendants live on the reputation acquired 
 thereby by their epicurean ancestress. The Bour- 
 bons vied with the aristocracy in taxing their genius, 
 and cudgelling their brains, in order to produce new 
 dishes. Thus, the potage ad la Xavier was the produc- 
 tion of Louis XVIII., in the days of his early man- 
 hood; while the soupe a la Conde was a rival dish 
 invented by his princely cousin, —a cousin, by the 
 
THE MODERN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE 123 
 
 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 reputation of the Maréchal de Richelieu 
 rests more on his doudins a la carpe, than on his 
 battles and Jdzllets-doux. Finally, a mysterious ob- 
 scurity conceals from us the name of the inventor 
 of the petztes bouchées de fore 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 no- 
 body but his cooks and the young ladies of the 
 opera. He once varied his extravagance by a splen- 
 did féte, which was to terminate by a supper. His 
 chef waited on him with the bill of fare for the ban- 
 quet, and the first article which attracted his atten- 
 tion was “fifty hams.” ‘Half a hundred hams!” 
 said the prince, “that’s a coarse idea, Bertrand. You 
 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.” 
 “Bertrand,” replied the prince, “you are robbing 
 me, and I cannot allow this article to pass.” “ Mon- 
 seigneur!” exclaimed 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 ter- 
 ribly offend you, why, I will put them all into a phial 
 
124 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 not bigger than my thumb!”’ The prince smiled, 
 and Bertrand triumphed. 
 
 The cooks of the young King Louis XVI. re- 
 marked, 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 nice- 
 ness. A succulent joint with him had more merit 
 than the most singular of dishes, the invention of 
 which had perhaps caused three nights of wakeful- 
 ness 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 
 suppers, 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 St. Ho- 
 nore made fragrant with their incense the entire capi- 
 tal. 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 “Monseigneur ” 
 thought nothing of despatching his cook to London 
 to procure a turtle; which, after all, was less extrav- 
 agant than the process of Cambacérés, who had his 
 Périgord 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 essen- 
 tial to life than mere instruction ; and besides, could 
 the family tutor have accomplished anything that 
 could equal the achievement of the family cook who 
 could bring to table entire a “sanglier a la crapau- 
 
THE MODERN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE 125 
 
 dine?’ The cooks of the age of Louis XVI. in- 
 vented the “ douz/lze” and the “consommé,”’ because 
 mastication was considered by them a vulgar process ; 
 and the royal cooks, during Passion Week, manip- 
 ulated the vegetables placed before the king into the 
 forms of ocean-dwelling fish, and gave to the sem- 
 blance the taste of the reality for which it passed to 
 the eye. 
 
 The glory of gastronomy was again rising 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 aristo- 
 cratic appendages that ought to be suppressed, some- 
 times made, where it hoped to mar. The case of Ude 
 is one in point. 
 
 Monsieur Ude, like Prince Eugene, was originally 
 intended for the Church. At the breaking out of 
 the French Revolution, he was residing, for instruc- 
 tion, with an abbé, and master and pupil had to fly 
 before the popular indignation which, for a time, 
 assailed the -Church, and all 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 Ude,” like other great houses, nearly 
 perished in the great political shipwreck of the day, 
 and this particular scion thereof took to the study of 
 practical gastronomy, and became chief supreme in 
 various great kitchens, from that of royalty down to 
 that of Crockford. 
 
 When the sluices of the French Revolution were 
 opened, how diverse were the fortunes of those who 
 
126 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 fled from before it! It was the same with the gentle- 
 men who had followed the fortunes of Napoleon. 
 They were scattered, like the generals of Alexander, 
 without being able, like them, to retire upon inde- 
 pendent sovereignties, and rear dynasties of barbaric 
 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 archiepiscopate. Those who failed to pro- 
 cure employment in foreign armies, and yet could 
 not lay aside their propensity for killing, went to the 
 East, and prescribed as physicians. Such of the rest 
 as were absolutely fit for nothing, and willing to do 
 it, inundated England, and undertook the light and 
 irresponsible office of private tutors! 
 
 But it was the earlier Revolution that afforded 
 examples of the greatest contrasts. Many young 
 men, intended for the Church, changed their profes- 
 sion, and became popular, useful, and rich, in the 
 households of European royalty, as civilisers of the 
 kitchen, who raised cookery from its barbarous con- 
 dition to a matter of science and taste. Perhaps 
 the most curious of the waifs and strays of the Revo- 
 lution flung upon our shores, was the Chevalier 
 d’Aubigné, 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 tav- 
 ern. In the course of the repast, he took upon him- 
 self 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 
 
THE MODERN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE 127 
 
 speaking, lettuces were commonly eaten, by tavern 
 frequenters at least, aw naturel, with no more dress- 
 ing than Nebuchadnezzar had to his grass when he 
 dieted daily among the beasts. Consequently, when 
 D’ Aubigné handled the preparation for which he had 
 asked, like a chemist concocting elixir in his labora- 
 tory, the guests were lost in admiration; for the 
 refreshing 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 liberty to ask you 
 to do us the favour 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 con- 
 trived to explain his position as emigrant, and his 
 dependence on the pecuniary 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 embarrass- 
 ment, and as much dignity, as though he had been 
 the physician De Portal taking an honorarium from 
 the hands of the Cardinal de Rohan. 
 
 He had communicated his address, and he, per- 
 haps, was not very much surprised when, a few days 
 after, he received a letter in which he was politely 
 requested to repair to a house in Grosvenor Square, 
 for the purpose of mixing a salad for a dinner-party 
 
128 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 there to be given. D’Aubigné 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 do now for Constantine’s simulative bouquets. 
 The preparer was soon enabled to proceed to his 
 responsible duties in a carriage; and a servant at- 
 tended him, carrying a mahogany case, containing 
 the necessary ingredients for concocting various 
 salads, according to the respective tastes of his em- 
 ployers. 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 Carré, — 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 reopened 
 France to the émigrés, he had realised some eighty 
 thousand francs, upon which he enjoyed a dignified 
 retirement in a provincial town. He invested sixty 
 thousand 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 “ Sad adfert.” 
 
 A knight over a salad-bow] is not a chivalrous pic- 
 ture; but the stern necessity of the case gave it dig- 
 nity, and the resulting profits quieted the scruples of 
 the gentleman. 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 
 
THE MODERN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE 129 
 
 was taken something aback, and said, in a little con- 
 fusion, “I did not expect, sir, to be seen by you in 
 this situation.” Booth told him “he thought it im- 
 possible he could appear in a situation more becoming 
 his character.”” The compliment was equivocal; but 
 the captain said, “ Youdonot? By G 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 
 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 
 table, we have nothing to do with the secrets of 
 household ; but an incident illustrative of the conse- 
 quences of this match may be mentioned. The 
 judge ever after was famous for protracting the sit- 
 tings 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, “Gentlemen, we must be somewhere; we can- 
 not be better anywhere than where we now are,” — 
 the half of which assertion was stoutly denied by his 
 hearers. 
 
 Our aristocracy are not quite so famous for their 
 invention of dishes as that of France; but their 
 
 
 
130 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 love for good dinners, and their knowledge of what 
 they ought to be, are not inferior to the affection and 
 science of our neighbours. 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 and grati- 
 tude, for they were first-rate in their way. The rep- 
 utation of the Carlton cuzszve and cellar is said to be 
 chiefly owing to Sir Alexander Grant, of whom a 
 gastronomic critic says, “No living Amphitryon has 
 given better dinners in his time; and few can boast 
 of having entertained more distinguished guests.” 
 His name, as a patron, reminds me of that of Careme, 
 as a practitioner,” 
 
Be and Ink Sketch of Caréme 
 
 Ir would be as easy to compile a dictionary of 
 cooks, as of musicians or painters; but it would not 
 be so amusing or so edifying, except perhaps to those 
 who think 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 toa 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 un chat un chat,’ was the device of the 
 plain-spoken, when not only men, but ladies, bold 
 a§ the Thalestris of Young’s pungent satire, loudly 
 dared to name what nature dared to give. Doctor 
 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 belly very studiously ; 
 for I look upon it that he who does not mind his 
 belly, will hardly mind anything else!” 
 
 To the world, then, even a biographical dictionary 
 of cooks might be captivating; but as my present 
 mission is not to write an encyclopedia, but rather 
 deferentially to offer my little sketches to gentle, and 
 not too critical, readers, with leisure half-hours at 
 
 131 
 
132 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 their command, so do I offer them a sketch of Caréme, 
 as the knowledge of the individual may stand for that 
 of the class. 
 
 He was illustrious by descent ; for one of his an- 
 cestors had served in the household of a Pope, who 
 himself made more sauces than saints, Leo X. But 
 Caréme was one of so poor and so numerous a family, 
 that when he came into the world, he was no more 
 welcome than Oliver Goldsmith was; the respective 
 parents of the little-cared-for babes did not know 
 what future great men lay in naked helplessness be- 
 fore them. One wrote immortal poetry and starved: 
 the other made delicious pastry, and rode in a chariot! 
 We know how much Oliver received for his ** Vicar ;” 
 while Anthony Caréme used to receive twice as much 
 for merely writing out a recipe to make a “até.” 
 Nay, Caréme’s untouched patties, when they left 
 royal tables, were bought up at a cost which would 
 have supported Goldsmith for a month; and a cold 
 sugared eztremet, at the making of which Caréme 
 had presided, readily fetched a higher price than the 
 public now pay for the “Complete Works” of the 
 poet of Green Arbour Court! 
 
 Caréme studied under various great masters, but 
 he perfected his studies under Boucher, chef des ser 
 vices of the Prince Talleyrand. The glory of Careme 
 was coeval with that of Napoleon: those two indi- 
 viduals were great men at the same period; but the 
 glory of one will, perhaps, be a little more enduring 
 than that of the other. I will not say whose glory 
 will thus last the longer; for as was remarked cour- 
 teously by the Oxford candidate for honours, who 
 was more courteous than ‘crammed,’ and who was 
 
PEN AND INK SKETCH OF CAREME 133 
 
 asked which were the minor prophets, “I am not 
 willing to draw invidious distinctions!” 
 
 In the days of the Empire, —the era of the great- 
 ness, of the achievements, and of the reflections of 
 Caréme, — the possession of him was as eagerly con- 
 tested 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 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 Caréme 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 Caréme: 
 the seduction money was only 4100 sterling per 
 month, and the culinary expenses. Caréme 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; and he 
 even accompanied, for a brief moment, “Lord 
 Stewart ’’ to Vienna; but it was more in the way 
 of policy than pastry: for Count Orloff was sent 
 after him on a mission, and Caréme, after flying, with 
 the full intention of being followed, to London and 
 Paris, yielded to the golden solicitation, and did the 
 Emperor Alexander the honour of becoming the 
 head of the imperial kitchen in whatever palace his 
 Majesty presided. But the delicate susceptibility of 
 Caréme was wounded by discovering that his book 
 
134 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 gentleman, who may not be so 
 widely known as Careme, but who has been heard 
 of in England under the name of William Words- 
 worth. Caréme accepted the omen, repaired to 
 Paris, entered the service of the Princess Bagration, 
 and served the table of that capricious lady, ez 
 maitre ahotel. As the guests uttered ecstatic 
 praises of the fare, the princess would smile upon 
 him as he stood before her, and exclaim, “He is 
 the pearl of cooks!”’ Is it a matter of surprise that 
 he was vain? Fancy being called a “pearl” by a 
 princess! On reading it we think of the days when 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu put nasty footmen 
 into eclogues, and deified the dirty passions of Mrs. 
 Mahony’s lackey. 
 
 The princess, however, ate herself into a _per- 
 manent 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 left him without pres- 
 ents and encouragements. Indeed, these rained upon 
 the immortal artist. The Emperor Alexander had 
 consented to have Caréme’s projects in 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 
 
PEN AND INK SKETCH OF CAREME 135 
 
 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 regent’s 
 household. He left Vienna to be present at the 
 coronation ; but he arrived too late; and he does not 
 scruple to say, very ungenerously, that the banquet 
 was spoiled for want of his presence, nor to insinuate 
 ‘that the colleagues with whom he would have been 
 associated were unworthy of such association, — an 
 insinuation at once base and baseless. After being 
 the object of a species of semi-worship, and yielding 
 to every new offer, yet affecting to despise them all, 
 Caréme ultimately tabernacled with Baron Roths- 
 child in Paris; and the superhuman 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 melancholy, and opportunity for much eulogy, 
 on the part of George IV.? Well, Anthony Caréme 
 would have us believe as much with respect to him- 
 self 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 salaries; but all in 
 vain; for London was too ¢rzste 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 Milton, very!) to his accomplished daughter. 
 Les beaux restes of Careme were eagerly sought 
 
136 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 after; but he would not heed what was no longer a 
 temptation; for he was realising twenty thousand 
 francs a year from the booksellers, besides the in- 
 ‘terest of the money he had saved. Think of it, 
 shade of Milton! Eight hundred pounds sterling 
 yearly, for writing on kitchen stuff! Who would 
 compose epics after that? But Caréme’s books were 
 epics after their sort, and they are highly creditable 
 to the scribe who wrote them from his notes. Fi- 
 nally, even Anthony Caréme died, like cooks of less 
 degree; but he had been the imperial despot of 
 European kitchens, had been “beringed” by mon- 
 archs, 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 little 
 knowledge in return; and finally, as Fulke Greville 
 had inscribed on his tomb that he had been the 
 friend of Sir Philip Sidney, so the crowning joy of 
 Caréme’s life might have been chiselled on his monu- 
 ment, indicating that he had been the friend of one 
 whom he would have accounted a greater man than 
 the knightly hero in question, — namely, 22 Maestro 
 Rossini! Caréme’s cup was thereat full; and he 
 died, perfectly convinced that paradise itself would 
 be glad at his coming. 
 
 The celebrated Damvers was chef to the as cele- 
 brated financier Grimaud de la Reyniére, in the last 
 century. Grimaud died a martyr to his epicurean 
 tastes. He was dining on a paté de fotes gras, when 
 he allowed his appetite to overpower his digestion, 
 and he died of the excess. Barthe, the author of 
 “Les Fausses Infidélités,” also fell on the field of the 
 dining-room. He was extremely short-sighted, and 
 
PEN AND INK SKETCH OF CAREME 137 
 
 ate of everything on the table. He did not consult 
 his appetite, but his servant, asking him, “Have I 
 Gaseneor 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 apo- 
 plexy sent him under the table. His cook deplored 
 in him the loss of a man of taste. 
 
 The cook of the Count de Tessé, master of the 
 horse to Marie Antoinette, was famous for dressing 
 artichokes. The great Morillian surpassed him, 
 however; but this feat did not save the artist from 
 ending his days in poverty. The elder Robert was, 
 perhaps,’ equal to either of them, in this or in any 
 other respect connected with his art. The great 
 Caréme, ignorant of everything else, was at least an 
 accomplished cook. There is, as I have said, a tra- 
 dition that his petzts pdtés, when they left the regent’s 
 table, were sold, like the second-hand pies from the 
 royal table at Versailles, for fabulous prices. As I 
 have before intimated, it was for Leo X. that Caréme 
 the First invented those succulent, but orthodox, 
 dishes, which pleased the pontifical palate at a season 
 when gratification by gravy would have been scan- 
 dalous! It was in the Baron Rothschild’s household 
 that Careme the Second invented his famous sauce 
 piquante, the result of his studies under Richaut, 
 Asne, and the elder Robert. It was in and for 
 France that Caréme published the learned and 
 curious work of which he is the reputed author, and 
 which he may have dictated, but which he could not 
 have written. It is marked by philosophical inquiry, 
 instruction, and pleasant trifling; and neither book 
 
138 - TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 ° 
 France was not very superior to our own; and the 
 patrons of tavernes and traiteurs were as coarsely fed 
 as our frequenters of ordinaries. But as royalty fell, 
 the vestaurateurs rose; and when, in 1786, the cooks 
 of Louis XVI. began to augur badly of their pros- 
 pects, three provincial brothers, Barthelemy, Manni- 
 elles, and Simon, opened their famous restaurant, 
 “Les Trois Fréres Provengaux,” in the Palais Royal, 
 and constituted themselves the cooks of another king, 
 —the sovereign people. The new establishment 
 created an era in the history of cookery, and men of 
 all shades of politics, and generals of all 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 Mlle. Montansier. During the wars of 
 the Empire it was the chosen stage for the farewell 
 banquets of brethren 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 Philippe that the 
 establishment of ‘Les Trois Fréres”’ descended, 
 under a new proprietary, into a more unpretending 
 position than that which it had proudly sustained 
 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 
 
PEN AND INK SKETCH OF CAREME 139 
 
 another country cook from his obscurity ; and some 
 four years after the former had set up their tables 
 in the Palais Royal, the immortal Véry 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 beautiful woman, whose pen kept his 
 books, whose face attracted customers, and whose 
 heart was devoted to her husband. A quarter of a 
 century sufficed to enable Véry to die immensely 
 rich, after working excessively hard, and to be mag- 
 nificently entombed in the Cimetiere Montmartre, 
 under a marble column, which bore the engraved 
 assurance that “his whole life was devoted to the 
 useful arts.” 
 
 Beauvilliers 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 Véry died so rich. Beauvilliers was the 
 author of: “L’Art du Cuisinier,” a book almost as 
 interesting as “The Art of Dining ;’’ and one cannot 
 name either without standing mentally chapeau bas 
 before the author. 
 
 Beauvilliers was famous for his splendid wines and 
 heavy bill. The “ Veau Qui Tette”’ was renowned for 
 its sheep-trotters. The reputation of others was built 
 upon kidneys; that of Véry, on his entrées truffées. 
 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 dis- 
 tinguished for the graceful attention with which pre- 
 
140 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 viously ordered dinners were served; and that of 
 Henneveu for the splendid boudoirs in which shy 
 couples, too modest to encounter the public gaze, 
 could dine in private, and cease to find their modesty 
 oppressive. Beauvilliers’s, as I have intimated, was 
 a costly house; but it was not therefore the most 
 excellent in Paris. The excellence of a dinner is not 
 to be determined by its price. Four years ago an 
 illustrious party dined at Philippe’s, in the Rue Mont- 
 orgueil, at a far lower cost, and after a far more 
 exquisite fashion, than if they had joined the epi- 
 cureans of the Clarendon, at 45 per head. The 
 party consisted of Lords Brougham and Dufferin, 
 the Honourable W. Stuart, two other “ Britishers,” 
 and Count D’Orsay and M. Alexandre Dumas. The 
 dinner on this occasion was a vrecherché 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 Jdzsgues, the fretures a 
 l’Italienne, and the gigot a la Bretanne. Out of 
 compliment to the world-wide fame of Lord 
 Brougham and Alexandre Dumas, M. Philippe pro- 
 duced some Clos de Vougeot, which (like his name- 
 sake 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 younger 
 Robert’s, in Paris. The Amphitryon of the feast 
 was M. Daolouis; and the bill, exclusive of wine, 
 
PEN AND INK SKETCH OF CAREME 141 
 
 amounted to thirty louis. There were but three or 
 four great dishes, and two or three sauces. The dis- 
 content of the guests was general, and the giver of 
 the feast allowed that the dinner was not near so 
 good as that of the “Société des Mercredis,”’ at Le 
 Gacque’s, which cost only seven francs per head, 
 ordinary wine, liqueurs, and coffee included. “ Mais, 
 a diner, messieurs, a diner!” 
 
 = 
 
Dinner Traits 
 
 “For these and all His mercies,” once began 
 Doctor 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 seesaw process Mrs. John- 
 son 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 worth- 
 less 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 will 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 fer- 
 vently make thanksgiving in his own heart. He is 
 an ungracious knave who sits down to a meal without 
 at least a silent 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 man- 
 
 142 
 
DINNER TRAITS 143 
 
 ners. ‘Come, gentlemen,” Beau Nash used to say, 
 “eat, and welcome!” It was all his grace; and had 
 he said, “Come, gentlemen, be thankful and eat,” 
 it would have been more like the Christian gentle- 
 man, and less like the “ beau.” 
 
 It was a good old rule that prescribed as a law of 
 numbers 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 Ler Faunza, a man was for- 
 bidden 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 120 
 Roman 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 consequence 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 Lex Faunia, when 
 it allowed unrestrained liberty in thistles, forgot to 
 limit sauces; and vegetables generally were eaten 
 with such luscious aids to which the name of “sauce” 
 was given, that even the grave Cicero yielded to the 
 temptation, spoiled his digestion, and got a liver com- 
 
144 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 plaint! After all, it is: said that only three Romans 
 could be found who rigorously observed the Faunza 
 law, according to their oaths. These were men more 
 easily satisfied than Apicius, who cried like a child, 
 when, of all his vast fortune, he had only about 4250,- 
 ooo sterling that he could devote to gluttony; or 
 than Lucullus, who never supped in the “Apollo” 
 without its costing him at least £10,000. 
 
 Notwithstanding this, the faunza law was an 
 absurd impertinence. It was like the folly of Antig- 
 onus, who one day, seeing the poet Antagoras in the 
 camp, cooking a dish of congers for his dinner, asked, 
 “QO 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 exploits, by try- 
 ing to find out who had boiled 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, évértucev eis airyv, “spat in it;” and if my 
 readers refer to the chapter illustrating “ Their Maj- 
 esties 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 smell 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 
 
DINNER TRAITS 145 
 
 begged him to be good enough not to spoil the frolic 
 by dying at such a mirthful moment. He consented, 
 asked for a pot of honey, and kept himself alive by 
 smelling at it, till the festival was over, when his 
 family hoped that he would die whenever he found it 
 convenient. He took one sniff more at the pot, and 
 in the effort 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 Madame du Deffand, who 
 went out to dine on the day her old lover died, re- 
 marking, 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 ex- 
 pecting her. The brilliant society who played cards 
 by the side of the bed of the dying Mlle. de |’Espi- 
 nasse, and counted their tricks while they commented 
 upon her “rattles,” may be pronounced as being 
 twice as pagan as the ladies of the household of 
 Democritus. | 
 
 A small portion of soup is a good preparative to 
 excite the digestive powers generally for what is to 
 follow. Oysters form a far less commonly safe in- 
 troduction to the more solid repast, their chill, which 
 even Chablis cannot always rectify, paralysing rather 
 than arousing the stomach. The French douzliz 
 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. Brillat, “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 
 
146 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 almost any dish attractive to any and every quality 
 of appetite. _ In this respect, the French and Chinese 
 cooks are really professional brethren; 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 
 corn, they will 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 thoroughbred 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 grisettes: 
 “Rather eatable things, those grisettes, by the 
 bye!”’ So are the birds’ nests, composed as they are 
 of small shell-fish and a glutinous matter, supplied 
 by the plumed inhabitant of the edible houses. 
 Bears’ paws, rolled in pepper and nutmeg, dried in 
 the sun, and subsequently 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 some men for whom cooks toil in 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 was at dinner when Colonel Hamilton ap- 
 peared before him to announce an Austrian victory 
 over the French. The general had one huge plate 
 before him, a sort of Irish stew, with everything for 
 sauce, from which he ate greedily, spitting out the 
 
DINNER TRAITS 147 
 
 bones, “‘as was his custom.” He was so delighted 
 with the message and the messenger, that he received 
 him as Galba did Icelus, the announcer 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 gen- 
 eral’s plate, “without ceremony.” The great Coligny 
 was, like Suwarrow, a rapid eater, but he was more 
 nice in his diet. The characteristic of Coligny was, 
 that he always used to eat his toothpicks. 
 
 According to ancient rule, an invitation not replied 
 to within four and twenty hours was deemed ac- 
 cepted ; 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 punctuality be the politeness 
 of kings, it should also be the policy both of guests 
 and cooks. Lack of punctuality on the part of the 
 former 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 Robert for Wednesday, 
 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. 
 
 s 
 
148 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 intro- 
 duced by Mlle. Emilie Contat, the actress ; but it was 
 tolerated only for a season. It was, at the same 
 period, of rigorous necessity, 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. Mlle. 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 
 city, and his preliminary proceedings thereto were 
 intended to be highly satirical upon what he consid- 
 ered Scottish parsimony. Every night, before retir- 
 ing to bed, he used to paper the curls of his wig with 
 Scotch bank-notes, — promissory paper, as he said, 
 of no value. When his cook waited on him at break- 
 fast-time for orders, “Sam” gravely uncurled his 
 locks, flung the papers to the attendant, as purchase- 
 money for the necessary provisions, and sent her to 
 market in a sedan-chair. But the old actor was as 
 eccentric and ostentatious at his own table in London 
 as he was anywhere. When the wines were placed 
 on the board, he solemnly, and as it were with a 
 shade of disgust, inquired, “If anybody drank port ?”’ 
 As no one dared to answer in the affirmative at his 
 
DINNER TRAITS 149 
 
 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 
 like Flood, the Irishman, who used to raise his glass 
 of claret aloft, with a cry, “Jf this be war, may we 
 never have peace!”’ 
 
 Comparatively speaking, claret is a very modern 
 wine. Indeed, none. of the Bordeaux 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 Bor- 
 deaux wines were “drinkable.” ‘From father to 
 son the Bourbon race,” says Bungener, in his incom- 
 parable 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 IV. (their ancestor), was numbered that of a 
 “good drinker.”’ ‘ None of them, however, with the 
 exception of the regent, carried it to excess; but 
 what was not excess for them, would have been so 
 for many others. Louis XIV., at the summit of his 
 glory, and Louis XVI., surrounded by his jailors, 
 submitted equally to the laws of their imperious appe- 
 tite.” 
 
 When Louis XV. asked Richelieu if Bordeaux 
 wines were drinkable, the duke answered him in 
 terms which I may cite because of their correctness. 
 « Sire,” he replied, “they have what they call ‘white 
 Sauterne,’ which, though far from being so good as 
 that of Monrachet, or that of the little slopes in Bur- 
 gundy, is still not to be despised. There is also a 
 
150 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 believe them. Yet it is certainly not com- 
 parable to the wine of Upper Burgundy. Its flavour 
 is not bad, however, and it has an indescribable sort 
 of dull, saturnine acid, which is not disagreeable. 
 Besides, one can drink as much as one will. 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 Bordeaux, as 
 was that given by Sheridan, I believe, of champagne : 
 “It does not enter,” he said, ‘and steal your reason ; 
 it simply makes a runaway 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 circumstance 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 ‘Gaietiés Champétres,” 
 « Nemorin takes leave of Estelle, and returns home, 
 overcome by hunger. Don Kyrie Eleison de Mon- 
 tauban, after running all day long, after Mlle. Blai- 
 sir-de-ma-vie, goes and knocks at the door of the 
 neighbouring chateau, and asks to be invited to sup- 
 per. Niobe herself, in the Iliad, as afflicted as woman 
 can be, does not forget, when night comes, to take a 
 little refreshment.’’ If Seneca derided such doings, 
 
DINNER TRAITS ISI 
 
 it was only after dinner, when appetite failed him. 
 Human nature is made up of sentiment and hunger ; 
 and Hood’s sentimentalist was not unnatural 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 
 lives; and though Bacchus, Cupid, Comus, and Diana 
 be no longer the deities or the deati of the earth, 
 the substantial worship remains; and, as M. Brillat 
 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 live upon fruits, took 
 to flesh; for then the family necessarily assembled to 
 devour what had been slain and cooked. They knew 
 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 intellectual enjoyment is seldom there. 
 
152 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Horace, with his modest repasts and fair wine, was 
 something of the same opinion as Horatio. Where 
 the wine is indifferent, the guests too numerous and 
 ill-assorted, the spirit heavy, the time short, and the 
 repast too eagerly consumed, there is no 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, “ Wes amis, ne nous pressons pas!” I thought 
 of Talleyrand and his advice to a too willing secre- 
 tary: “ Surtout, pas de zele!". The most accom- 
 plished 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 pro- 
 gression 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 movement ; 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 excep- 
 tion 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.” 
 
DINNER TRAITS rs3 
 
 I have spoken of the aids which the French no- 
 bility have given to table enjoyment. To them may 
 be added the innovation, introduced by Talleyrand, of 
 offering Parmesan 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 midday, the dinner-time of the Jews ; and he 
 would have also come under the anathema in Eccle- 
 siastes which is levelled against the princes who eat 
 in the morning. 
 
 Plato was rather shocked at those people of Italy 
 who made two substantial meals daily; and Seneca 
 was satisfied with one meal, —a dinner of bread and 
 figs. The Roman priests of Mars dined _jollily 
 and sumptuously in a secret room of the temple, 
 and they would not be disturbed. They were like 
 Baillie de Suffren, 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 conscience. 
 The original dinner-hour of the medizval ages was, 
 as I have elsewhere stated, ten o'clock, the adzxrzéme 
 heure ; 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 our meals. A French historian shows us how a 
 Dauphin of France dined (at ten o’clock) in the 
 fifteenth century : 
 
 «As an every-day fare, the Dauphin took for his 
 dinner rice pottage, with leeks or cabbage, a piece of 
 beef, another of salt pork, a dish of six hens or twelve 
 
154 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 knights, 
 the quarter; and the equerries and chaplains, the 
 eighth. ‘Take pride from priests, and nothing re- 
 mains,’ once remarked an encyclopzdist to Voltaire. 
 “Umph!” said Voltaire; ‘do you, then, reckon 
 gluttony for nothing ?’’ Gluttony, at least, does not 
 seem to have characterised the Dauphin’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, his ancestors. I allude to the prince men- 
 tioned by Maurepas, and whose imagination was so 
 sick, that he fancied himself a hare, and would not 
 allow a bell to be rung, lest it should terrify him into 
 the woods, where he might be shot by his own game- 
 keepers, and afterward 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 Maréchal de Luxembourg; and who 
 solemnly invited him to descend with them to the 
 shades, and dine with the ghost of Maréchal Turenne. 
 The melancholy prince accepted with alacrity, and 
 
DINNER TRAITS 155 
 
 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 all 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 folly, let us end this section by adding 
 a maxim full of wisdom. ‘Be not made a beggar,” 
 says Ecclesiasticus, “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 repay- 
 ment in the world to come! Many a dinner-giver 
 belongs to the class of the borrowing Belgians of 
 antiquity. After all, there was, perhaps, more in- 
 tended honesty in the compact than we can dis- 
 tinguish. A compact 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 pawn- 
 broker’s men were to wait at the dinner in livery, and 
 convey the silver back as soon as the repast was con- 
 cluded. The dinner was given and enjoyed, and 
 
156 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 the company made the attendants drunk, helped the 
 baronet to pack up his forks, spoons, ladles, and 
 épergnes, with which he set off for Paris, where some 
 of them afterward 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 will 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 “thanks- 
 giving.” 
 
The Materials for Dining 
 «Art flesh is grass;” 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. Doctor 
 Johnson approved of asparagus being called “grass.” 
 Romulus thought grass a sacred emblem, or he 
 would not have suddenly converted 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, according to 
 their custom when in extremities, with grass between 
 their teeth, to signify, as the imperial autobiographer 
 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 monument. 
 
 My friend, Captain Lionel da Costa, tells me, that 
 on accompanying (eu amateur) a French force on a 
 razzia against an Arab tribe in Algeria, he witnessed 
 the employment of grass as an emblem of defiance 
 rather than of submission. The French officers had 
 
 157 
 
158 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 assembled the Arab chiefs, and, telling them that the 
 foreigners had filled up their wells, carried off their 
 cattle, and burned their dwellings, exhorted them to 
 submission, asking them 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 all their reply, and by it they 
 intimated that they would eat what the earth gave, 
 like the beasts that are upon it, rather than sur- 
 render. Their enemies could not refrain from ad- | 
 miring and feeding such adversaries; their mute 
 eloquence was worth more than anything uttered 
 to tyrants by Power’s statue of the Greek Slave, 
 which, according to Mrs. Elizabeth Browning, “thun- 
 ders white silence,’ —a silence that must have been 
 akin to that in the French tragedy, “ szlence guz se fit 
 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. Rebecca 
 and Jacob ate of a pottage, in which the meat was 
 cut into small bits before the muscular fibres had 
 cooled and become hardened, and stewed in milk, 
 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, com- 
 posed of a score of small bulbs, well cleaned, sliced, 
 and put into a stew-pan, with a lump of fresh butter 
 and a little sugar. They were turned over the fire 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 159 
 
 till they became of a fine golden colour, when they 
 were moistened with broth, and the necessary quan- 
 tity 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 aspara- 
 gus, with which the orthodox epicure mortified his 
 appetite. 
 
 The famous Careme did with the soups he dis- 
 covered, what the most famous navigators have done 
 with the new territories on which they were the first 
 to land; namely, gave them the names of the most 
 illustrious contemporaries then existing. Royalty 
 was honoured in the Potage Condé; music in that of 
 Boteldieu ; and the medical faculty, which Caréme 
 generally despised, in the soupes a la Broussats, 
 Roques, and Segalas; poetry was illustrated in the 
 Lamartine ; history in the Dumesnzl; and philosophy 
 in the Potage Buffon. The last name he thus be- 
 stowed, 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 ‘“ Messéniennes,”’ that he created the matelotte a 
 la Delavigne ; and he paid the doctor who had cured 
 him of an indigestion, by inventing the dish of fish 
 which he called perche a la Gaubert. And with this 
 record we will put the fish on our own table. 
 
 “Tt 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 
 
160 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Egyptian priests cared not for fish of any sort, but 
 they generally allowed the people to eat with what 
 appetite they chose, of what the priesthood declined 
 to taste. ‘It is said in the legend, that St. Kevin 
 lived by the fish he caught in the Lake of Glenda- 
 loch ; and that when the celebrated beauty tempted 
 him, she did it by flattery and suggestion : 
 
 ‘©¢ You’re a rare hand at fishing,’ says Kate, 
 ‘It’s yourself, dear, that knows how to hook them; 
 
 But when you have caught them, agrah! 
 Don’t you want a young woman to cook them?’” 
 
 Gatis, Queen of Spain, was something like Mr. 
 Lover’s “Kate;” for, if her subjects caught fish 
 well, she it was who first taught them how to cook 
 what they caught, and how to enjoy what they 
 cooked. 3 
 
 When philosophers were occupied with inquiries 
 touching the soul of an oyster, fish was probably not 
 a popular diet. It certainly was not so in Greece, 
 until a comparatively 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 qual- 
 ities, and tragic writers introduced heroes holding 
 dialogues on the qualities 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 some- 
 times served up six pounds in weight, and sucha fish 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 161 
 
 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 gradations, until 
 paleness and death ensued, the convives looked on 
 admiringly, and lauded the spectacle. 
 
 The turbot was next in estimation; but as, occa- 
 sionally, offending slaves were flung into the turbot 
 preserves for the fish to feed upon, some gastrono- 
 mists have affected to be horror-stricken at the idea 
 of eating a turbot a la Romaine; quite forgetting 
 that so many of our sea-fish, in their own domain, 
 feed largely on the human 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 from fish. In later days, however, 
 here as in France, the finny tribes were protected by 
 royal decrees; and certain fish were named — the 
 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 con- 
 vent, and which were always of the same number as 
 the monks. If one of these sickened and died, the 
 
162 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 Romans 
 with the sepza, or “cuttle-fish.” They invariably 
 took out the eyes before boiling it. It is in allu- 
 sion to this custom that Trachalion says, in the 
 BS nidens 37) 
 
 “ Age nunc jam, 
 Jube oculos elidere, itidem ut sepiis faciunt coqui.” 
 
 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 sepze, as 
 they had their pet lambs and pigs (“ Sunt domi agni 
 et porct sacres,” says the orthodox husband in the 
 “ Rudens ’’), 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 intro- 
 duced by sound of trumpet, and it was almost as 
 esteemed a subject at those of Rome, until Vespasian 
 condescended not to care for it, and to bring other 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 163 
 
 fish into fashion. “It is caviare to the general,”’ is 
 a proverb which Shakespeare has popularised. The 
 caviare is the roe of the sturgeon dried; that of the 
 larger sturgeon, which produces hundredweights of 
 eggs, and tons of oil, 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 Romans were more successful with 
 ‘their sea-eels, which would come when called, and 
 feed from the hands of men, who occasionally fat- 
 tened them upon live slaves. Vedius Pollio 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 im- 
 proved the taste of the eel. Epicures with less 
 ferocious appetites preferred the fish that had been 
 fattened upon veal steeped in blood. Vitellius put 
 the fish altogether out of fashion by only eating the 
 roes, which were procured for him at 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 
 Egyptians placed the sea-eel in their pantheon; and 
 even the unorthodox cannot deny that he was as 
 
164 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 good 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 Rome, to the fish 
 known as the sea-wolf, which abounded in the most 
 filthy parts of the Tiber, and which some epicures 
 distinguished by the appellation of ‘child of the 
 gods.’ The Romans paid high prices for it, as they 
 did for the regicide lamprey, —a fish which killed 
 our first Henry, and which Italian cooks used to kill, 
 as the murderers did maudlin Clarence, in the 
 Malmsey butt, by plunging the victim, decked for 
 the sacrifice with a nutmeg in his mouth, and a clove 
 in either gill, 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 Alex- 
 ander, that the pilots of the Macedonian madman 
 were compelled to shape a different course; and 
 though they are to be found in something like abun- 
 dance in the Mediterranean, yet tourists who resort 
 thither must not expect to see realised the gay pic- 
 ture 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 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 165 
 
 had not been directed against it, as unfavourable to 
 the weak of digestion, and perilous to those affected 
 by pulmonary diseases. The pike, emblem of fecun- 
 dity and example of lengthened years, was still less 
 popular. The carp, which even surpasses the pike 
 in fecundity, and is a long liver to boot, was, on the 
 other hand, an especial favourite, but it was served 
 up with sauces that would certainly not tempt a 
 modern 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 goldfish with carrots and myrtle leaves, — the 
 delight of the Roman loungers at their “ Blackwall,” 
 on the Tiber. So the Greeks spoiled good cod by 
 eating it with grated cheese and vinegar; and the 
 Romans made perch more indigestible than it was 
 before, by swallowing Damascus plums with it. But 
 the ancients had strangely accommodating stomachs : 
 a sauce of honey could induce them to eat cuttlefish. 
 Garlic and cheese made the swordfish delicacies; the 
 rhombus floated into Greek stomachs on a sauce of 
 wine and brine; the ladies of Rome ate onions with 
 the muzil, and pine-nuts with the pilchard. The more 
 refined Greeks, on the other hand, would not touch 
 the pilchard; and the same difference of taste ex- 
 isted with regard to the loach; while, again, both 
 Rome and Greece united in admiration of the gudg- 
 eon. 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 there- 
 
166 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 with friend of the poor, and enricher of the state. 
 The profit realised by Holland exceeded two millions 
 and a half sterling, annually. But neither Greece 
 nor Rome 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 Romans, 
 from Brindés, the Lake of Lucrinus, Armorica, and 
 even from Britain. The Romans were hardly worthy © 
 of the delicacy, seeing that they abused it by mincing 
 oysters, mussels, and sea-hedgehogs together, stewed 
 the whole with pine-almonds and hot condiments, 
 and devoured the mixture scalding! Others, how- 
 ever, ate them raw, when they were opened at table 
 by a slave; and the larger the fish, the more the 
 Roman 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 
 exonerating the stomach by tickling the throat with 
 a peacock’s feather. The Bordeaux oyster was the 
 favourite fish of most of the emperors. It is very 
 inferior to the Whitstable oyster, however, and also 
 to that which goes by the name of “ Colchester,” and 
 which is not caught there. The passion for the 
 savoury fish is well illustrated in the epitaph which 
 Says : 
 
 
 
 “ ‘Tom 
 
 Lies buried in these cloisters ; 
 If, at the last trump, 
 
 He does not quickly jump, 
 Only cry ‘ Oysters!’” 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 167 
 
 If the emperors affected oysters, the gods them- 
 selves patronised mussels, a dish of which was con- 
 tributed by Jupiter to the wedding-banquet of Hebe. 
 The mythological sanction has, however, failed to 
 render the mussel popular, and for good reasons. It 
 is often extremely poisonous, and in certain condi- 
 tions of the stomach they who eat mussels 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 nat- 
 ural history of the products of those early times 
 seems to have been written by philosophers with 
 very poetical imaginations. We read of shells of 
 tortoises being converted into roofs of cottages, as 
 we are told by Pliny 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 af- 
 forded by the frog, — the abhorrence of early gastron- 
 omists, but the delight 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-quar- 
 ters 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 little 
 rivulets stocked therewith around the dinner-table, 
 
168 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 believed, 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 Talley- 
 rand, but the fish was already cold. ‘That is a mag- 
 nificent 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 here?”’ This reply was not as fatal to the 
 utterer of it, as a remark once made by Poodle Byng 
 at Belvoir 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 un- 
 lucky 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 atmos- 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 169 
 
 pheric air. According to this theory, I suppose, 
 Venus Anadyomene was the Eve of our fishy genera- 
 tion, 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 Roman 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 gourmand to prepare for dinner by 
 swallowing a gross, or a dozen dozen, of oysters. 
 Twelve of them, including the liquor, will 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 condi- 
 tion; 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, dis- 
 charges five of the eight pounds solely through the 
 pores by perspiration, it will at once be seen that to 
 hold the skin clean, and keep the pores unobstructed, 
 is of first-rate necessity for the sake of digestion and 
 comfort. 
 
 There are seaboard populations who live almost 
 exclusively on fish. They feed their domestic ani- 
 mals 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 rottenness of sprats. 
 
170 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Such populations are usually lean and sallow, but 
 they are strong-muscled and active-limbed ; and alto- 
 gether they afford good testimony in favour of the 
 efficacy of a fish diet, when no better is to be had. 
 As a diet, fish 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 gastronomic philosopher, — » 
 M. Fayot, 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-bouzllon, 
 flanked with aromatic herbs, and covered with a fresh 
 winding-sheet of delicate seasoning. In such dinners, 
 sea-fish have, undoubtedly, the first rank ; and among 
 them the Cherbourg lobster, the shrimp of Honfleur, 
 the crayfish 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 afterward 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 sim- 
 plicity. On the day after he makes his first appear- 
 ance, it is quite another affair. It may be then 
 disguised ; and the best manner of effecting this is, 
 to dress him @ fa Béchamel,—a preparation thus 
 called from the Marquis de Béchamel, who, in the 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 171 
 
 reign of Louis XIV., for ever immortalised himself 
 by this one vagout.” 
 
 The « Almanach des Gourmands”’ speaks of a Lor- 
 raine 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 in vogue in Paris. 
 There was then a ¢ad/e-d’héte for a fish repast only, 
 held at a house profanely called, “The Name of 
 Jesus.” This house stood in the Cloitre St. 
 Jacques de |’Hopital, and every Wednesday and 
 Friday it was crowded by the clergy, who dined mag- 
 nificently on mazgre 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 abbé dined there so copiously 
 off salmon, that a fit of indigestion was the corise- 
 quence. Some days afterward, when celebrating mass, 
 the savoury memories of the fish flocked into his 
 mind ; and he was heard to murmur, not the med culpd 
 of the “ Confiteor,” but, as he quietly beat his breast, 
 « Ah! that capital salmon! that capital salmon!” 
 
 Of the more nutritive species of fish, turbot, cod, 
 whiting, haddock, flounder, and sole are the least 
 heating. Of these, the cod is the least easy of diges- 
 tion, though turbot is quite as difficult of digestion 
 when much lobster sauce is taken with it. The 
 crimping of cod facilitates the digesting of the fish. 
 Sole and whiting are easily digested. Salmon is 
 nutritive, but it is oily, heating, and not very digest- 
 ible; far less so than salmon trout. The favourite 
 
172 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 parts of most of these fish are the least fit for 
 weak stomachs, and the most trying to strong ones. 
 Salmon, caught after the spawning season has com- 
 menced, is almost poisonous ; and eels are objection- 
 able at all seasons, from their excessive oiliness. 
 Shell-fish generally may be put down as “ indigesti- 
 ble,” particularly the under-boiled lobsters of the Lon- 
 don 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. 
 Shell-fish, and, indeed, fish generally, affects the skin, 
 by sympathy with the stomach. The effect is, some- | 
 times, as if a poison had been generated: at others 
 it very sensibly affects the odour of the cutaneous 
 secretions. This effect was thoroughly understood 
 when the Levitical priests, like those of Egypt, were 
 prohibited from eating fish. The prohibition was 
 based upon a just 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 for- 
 bidden cutlets in his hand; but the saint popped 
 them 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 ortho- 
 dox-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. 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 173 
 
 St. Patrick’s fish ought to have fetched as high a 
 price as the four cod which formed the sole supply in 
 Billingsgate market on one of the great frost-days 
 in January, 1809; they were sold to one dealer for 
 fourteen guineas. During the same month, salmon 
 _ was sold at a guinea a pound! When fish is so high- 
 priced, it is time to have done with it. So, exlevez! 
 and let us to the succeeding courses of viands more 
 substantial. While the fish is being removed, I will 
 merely relate that it was the practice 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 still existing, in its primitive simplicity, 
 in Coventry Street. He selected the best ; and later 
 in the day, his niece, Miss Palmer, used to call, dis- 
 pute 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 
 ruffled the dignity of such a pompous 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 
 commenced in the year of the world 1656. Other 
 authorities give 2412 as the proper date, when 
 Prometheus, or Forethought, as. his name implies, 
 taught men the use of fire, and cooked an ox. But I 
 
174 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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, 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 better au- 
 thority than all these pretty tales for man’s subduing 
 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 aristo- 
 crat 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, where- 
 with the oxen were prepared for the cattle-show or 
 the market. In the latter, the office of the Roman 
 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 in Rome, which proves, however, that the seller 
 had a voice in declaring the value of his stock. Pur- 
 chaser and vendor simultaneously closed, and then 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 175 
 
 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 
 understanding, that when a Dutchman was selling to 
 an Indian his fist weighed a pound, but that it should 
 only be half that weight when the Hollander was a 
 purchaser ! 
 
 The Roman markets were well supplied, and the 
 pig seems to have been the national favourite. The 
 emperors used 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 anything but 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 reverenced this unclean beast. Pliny 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 lep- 
 rosy were flung into the world, nine of them would 
 naturally fall to the execrated pig. There is no 
 
176 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 establish the unpopularity. of the animal 
 throughout the East, and to account also for the pro- 
 hibition. Galen, however, prescribed it as good food 
 for people who worked hard; and there are modern 
 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” descrip- 
 tion; and they were served up whole, with an entire 
 Noah’s ark collection of smaller animals inside, by 
 way of stuffing. 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 vagout 
 composed of young pigs stifled before they were 
 littered. The mother would have had no difficulty 
 in performing this feat herself for her own young, if 
 sows generally had been as huge as the one men- 
 tioned 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.” Menzachmus, 
 in Plautus, asks the price of the “porci, sacres, sin- 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 177 
 
 cert.’ ‘ Sacres”’ was applied to all animals intended 
 for immolation. The sinceri porct 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 re- 
 past 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, glan- 
 dium, sumen, facito in aqua jaceant.”’ 
 
 If men were not, anciently, fonder of beef than of 
 pork, the reason, perhaps, was, that the ox was relig- 
 iously reverenced, because of his use to man, whereas 
 the pig was really of no value at all but for consump- 
 tion. The excellence of the ox as food was, never- 
 theless, very early ascertained, and acted on by some 
 primitive people. The Jews were permitted to eat 
 of that of which Abraham had offered a portion to 
 angels ; and calf and ox were alike an enjoined food. 
 The Greeks, too, devoured both with much com- 
 placency, 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 and humble tables. The Greeks were espe- 
 cially fond of both, and the Romans were like them 
 in this respect; but the Egyptians religiously ab- 
 stained 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 
 
178 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 men. On the other hand, there were people who 
 preferred the flesh of the ass, which was not an 
 uncommon dish at Roman tables, where dogs, too, 
 were served as a dainty ; for Hippocrates had recom- 
 mended them as a refined food; and the Greeks 
 swallowed the diet thus authoritatively described. 
 The Romans, however, 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 un- 
 forgiving Romans. They were also sacrificed to the 
 dog-star. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that Mexico was partly 
 conquered 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 jour- 
 ney, 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 plentifully ; for we read, that at 
 Campeche, for instance, in return for his presents, 
 they placed before him partridges, turtle-doves, gos- 
 lings, cocks, hares, stags, and other animals 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 
 visitors, the dish he placed before them was “roasted 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 179 
 
 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 abun- 
 dant. It is poor food at any time; but the German 
 veal is the most tasteless of meats. There, indeed, 
 is applicable the smart saying of that ardent young 
 experimentalist, who declared that eating veal was as 
 insipid an enjoyment as kissing one’s sister! Car- 
 dinal 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 divinest 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 com- 
 pass 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 regu- 
 
180 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 larly 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 meat was said to 
 be delicious. Finally, 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 Romish altars; and the exclamation is equal to 
 «Please God!” The corruption is as curious a one 
 as that of “tawdry,” from “tt “Audroyis saree 
 Audrey’s fair, famous for the sale of frippery, — 
 showy, cheap, and worthless. 
 
 They who are half as particular about mutton as 
 Quixote Bowles was about pork, would do well to 
 remember, 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. Doctor 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 curious fact is stated by Young, in his 
 “Survey of Sussex; namely, that Lord Egremont 
 had, in his park, three large flocks of the Hereford, 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 181 
 
 Southdown, and Dishley breeds; and that these 
 three flocks kept themselves perfectly distinct, al- 
 though each had as much opportunity of mixing with 
 the others as they had with themselves. 
 
 I have alluded, in another page, to a circum- 
 stance first noticed, I believe, by Madame Dacier, — 
 that there is no mention of boiled meat, as food, 
 throughout Homer’s Ilad. The fair commentator is 
 right; but “boiling” is, nevertheless, used by the 
 poet as a simile. When (in the twenty-first book) 
 Neptune applies his flames to check the swelling fury 
 of Scamander : 
 
 ‘¢ The bubbling 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 be confessed, albeit the translation is Pope’s. 
 It is, however, the only reference to boiling to be 
 found in Homer, and here the fat of the sacrifice 
 boiled down is that of a pig. 
 
 ‘6 Kyloon Kedddpuevos aradorpepéos oiddo.o.”’ 
 
 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 be- 
 fore 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 
 
182 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 of the processes by which the English population 
 was 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 exclusively 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 mut- 
 ton. It has just that degree of consistency which 
 the stomach requires. Beef is not less nutritious, 
 but it is rather less easy of digestion, than mutton: 
 much, however, depends upon the cooking, which 
 process may, really not inaptly, be called the first 
 stage of digestion. ‘The comparative indigestibility 
 of lamb and veal arises from the meat being of a 
 more stringy and ‘indivisible nature. Old laws or- 
 dairied 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 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 admin- 
 istered 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 
 furnishing their own larder. Thus we read, that the 
 eagles in Norway exhibit as much cunning in pro- 
 curing their beef as can well be imagined ; and more, 
 perhaps, than can well be believed. They dive into 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 183 
 
 the sea, we are told, then roll in the sand, and after- 
 ward 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 English bull, 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 in- 
 stance, who have had their peculiar appetite also for 
 meat. Some twenty years ago, we heard of one at 
 - Brussels, which, fond of flesh generally, was particu- 
 larly 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 species of food was expressly reserved to 
 enrich the banquets 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 France, have those unfortu- 
 nate races been so tortured, and merely in order to 
 extract out of their anguish a little more exquisite 
 enjoyment for the palled appetites of epicures. The 
 turkey has, perhaps, the least suffered at the hands 
 of the Gallic experimentalists, though he has not 
 altogether 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 
 
184 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 until he dies, the Daniel Lambert of his species, of a 
 diseased liver, which is the most delicious thing pos- 
 sible in a pie. But it is ignoble treatment for the 
 only bird which is said to be prescient of approach- 
 ing 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 farmyards have improved upon the knowl- 
 edge 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 reasons of vengeance. At Rome, the hen was 
 the favourite bird; but hens were consumed in such 
 quantities, that Fannius, the consul, issued a decree, 
 prohibiting their being slain for food, during a cer- 
 tain period; and, in the meantime, the Romans 
 “invented the capon.” The duck was devoured 
 medicinally, that is, on medical assurance that it was 
 good diet for weak stomachs; and there were great 
 sages who not only taught that duck, as a food, would 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 185 
 
 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 be- 
 cause 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 Rome, as the livers, if not the 
 geese, are now the voluptas suprema of the epicure 
 of France, and of countries subject to the French 
 code of diet. A liver weighing as much as the rest 
 of the animal without it, was a morceau, in Rome, to 
 make a philosopher’s mouth water. This was not 
 proof of a more depraved taste than that exhibited by 
 a Christian Queen of France, who spent sixteen hun- 
 dred francs in fattening three geese, the delicate 
 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 propa- 
 gated in Europe, and the breed appears to have gradu- 
 ally passed away, like the bustard in England. It 
 was brought hither again from America, and its first 
 reappearance is said to have been at the wedding- 
 dinner of Charles IX. of France. 
 
186 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 The turkey was not protected, as the peacock was 
 by Alexander, by a decree denouncing death against 
 whomsoever 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 accession to the office 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 through Essex may see whole 
 “herds”’ of geese and ducks in the fields there, fat- 
 tening without thought of the future, and supremely 
 happy in their want of reflection. These birds are 
 “foreigners ;” at least nearly all of them are so. 
 They are Irish by birth, but they are brought over 
 by steam, in order to be perfected by an English edu- 
 cation; and when the due state of perfection has 
 been attained, they are, like many other young peo- 
 ple partaking of the “duck” or the “goose,” trans- 
 ferred 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 Belley,’”’ says the 
 author of the “ Physiologie du Gott,” “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 Ist 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 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 187 
 
 again about the 23d.” This good father died in our 
 “slorious 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 circula- 
 tion 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 Harvey, that he demon- 
 strated the fact. The doctors of ancient Roman 
 days supposed that the blood came from the liver; 
 and that, in passing through the vera 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 demon- 
 stration before Harvey. True, Sarpi used to say, 
 that he did not dare publish his discovery, for dread 
 of the Inquisition ; but that he confided it to brother 
 Fabi da Aqua-pendente, who kept it close for the 
 same 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 himself 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 Ritson used to 
 
188 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 style, “that thing you choose to call a poem, ‘ Para- 
 dise Lost.’”” It was an invention or discovery at 
 second-hand. 
 
 What conceits Cowley has in his verses on Harvey! 
 He makes the philosophical doctor pursue coy Nature 
 through sap, and catch her at last in the human 
 blood. He speaks, too, of the 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.’ You will remember, sir, that Shakespeare 
 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 re- 
 member, in the first canto of the Second Book, where 
 the bleeding lady is found by the good Sir Guyon: 
 
 “ Out of her goréd wound the cruel 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 blood yet in her veynes did hop; 
 Which when he felt to move, he hopéd faire 
 To call back life to her forsaken shop. 
 So well he did her deadly wounds repaire, 
 That at the last shee ’gan to breathe out living aire.” 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 189 
 
 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. Ai little more of the fat? Certainly ; 
 but, if you will take currant jelly with it, the sin be 
 upon your own head. It has always been the ap- 
 proved plan, you say. Ah, my dear sir, think what 
 the approved plan was, for years, in the treatment of 
 smallpox. 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 and numbers, 
 you 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 already have touched that pretty life- 
 assurance we wot of. English tastes, you urge? 
 Ah! in that case, 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 jelly would ruin the digestion of a whole 
 company. But I see you are incorrigible, and Will- 
 iam is at your elbow with the doubtful sauce. 
 
 Galen could not appreciate venison as the early 
 Patriarchs and the Jewish people did, and as the 
 Roman 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 delight into the 
 eyes of Diogenes. The deer was preferred to the 
 roebuck at Rome; but the wild boar was also a 
 favourite; and the Sicilian slave, chef to Servilius 
 Rullus, cooked not less than three of different sizes 
 
190 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 in one. The largest had baskets of dates suspended 
 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 delighted with the culinary 
 slave, as Lucullus 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 wed- 
 ding cakes are at those dreadful destroyers of time 
 and digestion, — wedding-breakfasts, —an indispen- 
 sable accompaniment. Caranus, the Macedonian, has 
 the reputation of having exceeded all others in his 
 nuptial magnificence; 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 thick- 
 ened the blood, and kept people from sleep; but 
 Galen—and such instances among the faculty are 
 not uncommon— 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 plenti- 
 fully as they well could, accounting such diet profit- 
 able 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 overrun with them, that the 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING IgI 
 
 inhabitants, afraid of being devoured, sent an embassy 
 to Rome; and Augustus despatched a military force, 
 which not only slaughtered the enemy, but ate the 
 half of them. The more refined gluttons of Rome 
 did not dine on the rabbit after this fashion. They 
 only picked a little of the young taken alive from the 
 slaughtered mother, or killed soon after birth. They 
 were preferable to the rabbits of the Parisian gar- 
 gottes, where fricassée de lapins 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 villainously 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 ema- 
 ciated, like human drunkards.” 
 
 Game was almost as sacred to the Egyptian priests, 
 as eggs to the sacerdotal gentlemen of some of the 
 modern tribes of Africa. Under the head of “game,” 
 we no longer admit the birds which, according to 
 Belon, figured 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 in 
 high estimation, although the taste for it was con- 
 fessedly 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, while they turned with loathing from 
 the plump pheasant. 
 
192 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 This Eastern bird, however, has, with this excep- 
 tion, 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 gratifi- 
 cation of the stomach; and a simple Athenian repub- 
 lican, 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 Vitellius invented, and which he desig- 
 nated by the name of “Shield of Minerva.” They 
 were greedily eaten by many other .of the Ceesars ; 
 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 par- 
 tridges, which were trained for fighting, as well as 
 fattened for eating. Roman epicures fixed on the 
 breast as the most “eatable” portion of the gallant 
 bird. The Greeks thought of it as we do of the wood- 
 cock ; 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 you a leg or a wing?” said a carver to a guest 
 he was about to help. “It is a matter of perfect in- 
 difference 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 resum- 
 ing 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 MATERIALS FOR DINING 193 
 
 The Romans, however, rather feared them, as tend- 
 ing to cause epileptic fits. Galen thought so; Aris- 
 totle took a different view, and the Greeks devoured 
 them as readily as though they had Aristotle’s 
 especial authorisation; 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 
 delicate 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, 
 however, 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 enjoy- 
 ment, 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 himself under an obligation ; 
 and he contrived to get well on other diet. 
 
 The diet was, nevertheless, held to be exceedingly 
 strengthening ; and blackbirds, also, were prescribed 
 
194 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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, 
 presumedly, dyspeptic king! In later times, we have 
 had as foolish ideas connected with them. The oil 
 in which they were cooked was said to be good for 
 sciatica, or hip-gout; and Vieillot says that freckles 
 might be instantaneously removed from the skin, if 
 — but ladies would never try what Vieillot recom- 
 mends. | 
 
 The blackbird was not imperially patronised. The 
 stomachs of the gastronomic Czesars gave more 
 greedy welcome to the flamingo. Caligula, Vitellius, 
 and Heliogabalus ruined their digestions by vagowts 
 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 
 Czesars fools for doing so when they could get any- 
 thing besides. The ancients, whether Greeks or 
 Romans, showed more taste in eating beccaficoes, — 
 that delicate 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 Heliogabalus confined 
 himself to these more savoury birds, instead of 
 ‘acquiring indigestion on ostrich brains and flamin- 
 goes, 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 
 
 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 195 
 
 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 
 unclean, of the earth, earthy, duck. And _ this 
 thought reminds me of a story, for which I am in- 
 debted to a friend, himself the most amiable of 
 Amphitryons, the good things at whose table have 
 ever wit, wisdom, mirth, and good-fellowship attend- 
 ant, as aids to digestion.’ 
 
 A LIGHT DINNER FOR TWO 
 
 Many years ago, when railways were things un- 
 dreamt of, and when the journeys from Oxford to the 
 metropolis were inevitably performed on that goodly 
 and pleasant highroad which is now dreary and for- 
 lorn, 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 ad- 
 vance to order dinner at a well-known roadside hos- 
 telry, 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 genera- 
 tions of freshmen, picturesque and charming to an 
 eye content with rich fields, luxuriant meadows, and 
 pretty streams, tributaries of the now adolescent 
 
 * Henry Holden Frankum, Esq. 
 
196 ’ TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 plump 
 larks ; and whether in a savoury pudding, swimming 
 with beefsteak gravy, or roasted, a round half-dozen 
 together, on an iron skewer or a tiny spit, those little 
 warblers furnished 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 roadside quarters had a cook who 
 dressed them to a nicety; contriving to produce or 
 develop a succulency and flavour which meaner prac- 
 titioners 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 
 well-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. “Oh!” 
 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,— no brewer's 
 iniquitous 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 
 
 <a es 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 197 
 
 bowels of the younger horseman, whose digestive 
 organs were unimpaired by college theses and ex- 
 aminations, 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 prep- 
 arations nearly complete, they glanced with satisfac- 
 tion 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, having previously satisfied 
 himself, by obsequious inquiry, that his guests were 
 quite ready, reéntered, bearing a dish with bright 
 cover, and heading as good a procession of domestics, 
 each similarly laden, as the limited resources of his 
 modest establishment admitted. The large number 
 of dishes rather surprised the elder of the twain, 
 whose mind was less absorbed by the suggestions of 
 appetite ; and, having despatched the sole attendant 
 left for a bottle of the best Madeira the cellar could 
 supply, and a jug of that malt liquor for which the 
 house had obtained 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 still 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 young collegian’s mirth 
 was great, his laugh hearty, at the climax of two 
 
198 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 pretty little chubby larks which closed the line of 
 dishes. Apple sauce and gravy, broccoli and pota- 
 toes, stood sentries, flanking the array. Upon his 
 ringing the bell with no gentle hand, the landlord 
 himself stepped in from the passage, where he ap- 
 peared 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 ac- 
 cepting it. The respectability 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 difficult matter. “Oh, 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 
 search of a neighbouring cobbler, whose prowess with 
 the knife and fork was preéminent 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 relics. A 
 latk apiece was a mere practical joke; and cheese, 
 with celery, left nothing further wanting to appease 
 those cravings which had prompted them to action. 
 While these little matters were in progress, the land- 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 199 
 
 lord 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 anything I am particularly 
 fond of, certainly ducks is a weak point, sir.” Boni- 
 face, thinking it his only chance, urged him to try; 
 and the man of bristles, nothing loath, consented. 
 On being duly introduced, orders were given for 
 setting-to on the spot, to ensure 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 eschewing vegetables, and eating scantily of 
 bread, the adsjecta membra of the doomed ducks 
 rapidly yielded up their savoury integuments. But 
 flesh is weak, and cobblers’ appetites are not wholly 
 unappeasable ; so that while the fifth victim was 
 under discussion, a stimulant, 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 im- 
 possible, was seen whispering to the landlord. The 
 gentleman loudly demanded what the fellow was 
 saying. “Sir,” said the landlord, promptly and cun- 
 ningly, “he says, he wishes there were half a dozen 
 more; for he is just beginning to enjoy them.” 
 “Confound the rascal’s gluttony,” cried the travel- 
 lers; “not a bit more shall he have. Put the re- 
 
200 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 maining couple by for our supper; for we shall not 
 leave your house till to-morrow,” —an arrangement 
 affording much relief to the shoemaker, and entire 
 satisfaction to the innkeeper. 
 
 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 
 4#1,000 sterling 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 slowworm 
 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. Jerdan could not conjecture 
 what use there could be in the cimex, that domes- 
 tic “B flat,’ which may be found in old beds and 
 old parchments. So my friend could not divine the 
 utility of a slowworm, or of that unclean parasite, 
 the “louse,” which, by the way, infects birds as well 
 as dirty humanity, and even reaches these same as- 
 piring larks. For the use of the slowworm I referred 
 him to natural history ; for that of the pediculus, I 
 _could 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 MATERIALS FOR DINING 201 
 
 the ensuing year. After the ceremony, the company 
 supped upon ducks, and sang like larks. 
 
 The household of Job was of a hospitable cast. 
 “Fis sons went and feasted in their houses, every 
 one on his day” (which is explained as being the 
 birthday) ; “and sent.and called for their three sisters 
 to eat and drink with them.” We know what mate- 
 rials the joyous family had to make a superb feast ; 
 and doubtless he who presided thereat was as proud 
 as the knight who, by virtue of triumphing in the 
 tournament, alone had the right to carve the pea- 
 cock 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 
 succulent and sweet-throated thrush. The proper 
 time for eating thrushes, and, indeed, much other 
 of the small game of the bird species, is toward 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 Romans fed them on a paste made up of figs, 
 wheat, and aromatic grains. The Roman 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 Nelson’s calling for sealing-wax amid the thunders 
 of Copenhagen, 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 enormous total of nearly fifty- 
 
202 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 two millions of francs 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. 
 
 In a dietetic point of view, it would be well for 
 weak stomachs to remember, that wild birds are more 
 nutritious than their domesticated cousins, and more 
 digestible. But the white breast or wing of a chicken 
 is less heating than the flesh of winged game. 
 Other game—such as venison, which is dark-col- 
 oured, and contains a large proportion of fibrine. 
 —produces highly stimulating chyle; and, conse- 
 quently, the digestion is an easy and rapid affair for 
 the stomach. But, though the whiter meats be 
 detained longer in the stomach, furnish less stimu- 
 lating chyle, and be suffered to run into acetous 
 fermentation, their lesser stimulating quality may 
 recommend 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 con- 
 sumer. ‘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 reverenced 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 
 
. THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 203 
 
 flavour which melted along his palate. The cardinal 
 used to say that it was like swallowing 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 himself 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 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 regarding the 
 partridge and woodcock has far better grounds for 
 what they assert : 
 
 “‘ If the partridge had but the woodcock’s thigh, 
 *T would 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 wood- 
 cock ever on the wing; and these parts, and the 
 immediate vicinity of them, acquire a muscular tough- | 
 ness, 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, unmeas- 
 ured honour was paid to vegetables. Monarchs ex- 
 changed 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 chemists tended their 
 
204 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 planting, and pious populations raised some of them 
 to the rank of gods. 
 
 The Licinian law enacted their use, while it re- 
 stricted the consumption of meat; and the greatest 
 families in Rome derived their names from them. 
 Fabius was but General Bean, Cicero was Vice- 
 Chancellor Pea, and the house of Lentulus took its 
 appellation from the slow-growing lentil. 
 
 The kitchen-garden of Henry VIII. was worse sup- 
 plied 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 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 
 Holland to procure a lettuce for his queen; and now 
 lettuces are flung by cart-loads to the pigs. Aspara- 
 gus and artichokes were strangers to us until a still 
 later period. 
 
 The bean has, from remote times, held a dis- 
 tinguished 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 ac- 
 counted typical of death; and the flamen of Jupiter 
 would neither look upon it nor pronounce its name. 
 The priests of Apollo, on the other hand, banqueted 
 on a dish of beans at one of the festivals of their 
 god. Those of A‘sculapius taught that the smell of 
 beans in blossom was prejudicial to health; and 
 farmers’ wives, in the days of Baucis and Philemon, 
 maintained that hens reared on beans would never 
 
 lay eggs. 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 205 
 
 The “bean” was once the principal feature 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 strict- 
 ness, at the Tuileries, was when Louis XVIII. was 
 yet reigning. Among his guests was Louis Philippe, 
 Duke of Orléans, who was lucky enough to draw the 
 bean, and thereby became monarch for the nonce, 
 ‘«‘My cousin,” said Louis XVIII., “is king at last!” 
 ‘‘T will 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, loyalty for whom he expressed with 
 so much of unnecessary and enforced ceremony. 
 
 The haricot blanc, or white kidney bean, deserves 
 to be introduced more generally into our kitchens. 
 There are various methods of dressing them ; but 
 the best is to have them softened in 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 allude here to the © 
 bean which, in full maturity, is taken from the pod, 
 and eaten in winter. In England we eat the pod 
 itself (in summer), split, and served with roast mut- 
 ton and venison. The mature bean, however, makes 
 an excellent dish. 
 
 And, apropos to monarchs, it is to Alexander that 
 we are indebted for the Indian “haricot;” and the 
 vegetable had a fashion in Greece and Rome worthy 
 of its distinguished introducer. But this fashion was 
 
206 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 not a mere consequence; for gray peas were as uni- 
 versally eaten. The people were so fond of these, 
 that political aspirants bought votes of electors in ex- 
 change for them. They formed the principal refresh- 
 ment of the lower citizens at the circus and the 
 theatre, where, instead of the modern cry of “ Oranges, 
 biscuits, porter, and bill of the play!’ was to be 
 heard that of “Peas! peas! ram peas! gray peas! 
 and a programme of the beasts and actors!” 
 
 Green peas were not known in France 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 cabbage has had a singular destiny, — in one 
 country an object of worship: in another, of con- 
 tempt. ‘The Egyptians made of it a god; and it was 
 the first dish they touched at their repasts. The 
 Greeks and Romans took it as a remedy for the 
 languor following inebriation. Cato said that in 
 the cabbage was a panacea for the ills of man. Era- 
 sistratus recommended it as a specific in paralysis; 
 Hippocrates accounted it a sovereign remedy, boiled 
 with salt, for the colic; and Athenian medical men 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 207 
 
 prescribed it to young.nursing-mothers, who wished 
 to see lusty babies lying in their arms. Diphilus pre- 
 ferred the beet to the cabbage, both as food and as 
 medicine, —in the latter case, as a vermifuge. The 
 same physician extols mallows, not for fomentation, 
 but as a good edible vegetable, appeasing hunger and 
 curing the sore throat at the same time. The aspara- 
 gus, aS we are accustomed to see it, has derogated 
 from its ancient magnificence. The original “grass” 
 was from twelve to twenty feet high; and a dish of 
 them could only have been served to the Brobdigna- 
 gians. Under the Romans, 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 would 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 reinvigorate 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 vegetable was prepared for the table. 
 
 The gourd does not figure at. our repasts as com- 
 monly 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 Athenzus will 
 remember, how a party of philosophers lost their 
 temper, in a discussion as to whether the gourd was 
 round, square, or oblong,—how a coarse-minded 
 doctor interrupted the discussion by a very incon- 
 gruous remark,—and how the venerable sage who 
 was in the chair called the rude man to order, and 
 
208 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 then bade the disputants proceed with their argu- 
 ment. 
 
 A still more favourite dish, at Athens, was turnips, 
 from Thebes. Carrots, too, formed a distinguished 
 dish at Greek and Roman 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 France, 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. Heate greedily thereof; and, as his father, 
 Tiberius, was as fond of it as he, the master of the 
 Roman 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 Galen was 
 against them; and, for a long time, they were only 
 used by drinkers, against headache, and by singers, 
 to strengthen their voice. Pliny pronounced arti- 
 chokes excellent food for poor people and donkeys! 
 For nobler stomachs he preferred the cucumber, — 
 the Nemesis of vegetables. But people were at issue 
 touching the merits of the cucumber. Not so, re- 
 garding the lettuce, which has been universally 
 honoured. It was the most highly esteemed dish of 
 the beautiful Adonis. It was prescribed as provoca- 
 tive to sleep; and it cured Augustus of the malady 
 which sits so heavily on the soul of Leopold of 
 Belgium, — hypochondriasis. Science and rank eulo- 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 209 
 
 gised the lettuce, and philosophy sanctioned the 
 eulogy in the person of Aristoxenus, who not only 
 grew lettuces as the pride of his garden, but irrigated 
 them with wine, in order to increase their flavour. 
 But we must not place too much trust in the 
 stories either of sages or apothecaries. These pagans 
 recommended the seductive, but indigestible, endive, 
 as good against the headache, and young onions and 
 honey as admirable 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 
 Apollo ate raw leeks, and loved them of gigantic di- 
 mensions. For this reason, perhaps, was the leek 
 accounted, not only as salubrious, but as a beautifier. 
 The love for melons was derived, in similar fashion, 
 probably, from Tiberius, who cared for them even 
 more than he did for broccoli. The German Czesars 
 inherited the taste of their Roman predecessor, carry- 
 ing 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 
 pounds 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 horseradish is, 
 probably, a descendant of this gigantic ancestor. It 
 
210 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 excep- 
 tion being, that it destroyed the teeth. There was 
 far more difference of opinion touching garlic, than 
 there was touching the radish. The Egyptians dei- 
 fied it, as they did the leek and the cabbage; the 
 Greeks devoted it to Gehenna, —and to soldiers, 
 sailors, and cocks that were not “game.’’ Medici- 
 nally, 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, how- 
 ever, could presume to enter the Temple of Cybele. 
 Alphonso of Castile was as particular as this goddess ; 
 and a knight of Castile, “detected as being guilty of 
 garlic,” suffered 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 watercress, a plant honoured and 
 eaten only by the Persians. It was, indeed, med- 
 ically esteemed as curative of consumption, and, by 
 placing it in the ears, of toothache. 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! 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING CAG: 
 
 Parsley was as popular in what may be called 
 “classical”” times, as the asparagus has invariably 
 been with a particular class in France. This vege- 
 table has ever been, I know not wherefore, a favour- 
 ite vegetable with the officials of the Gallican Church. 
 One day, Monseigneur Courtois de Quincy, Bishop 
 of Belley, was informed that an asparagus head had 
 just pierced the soil in his Eminence’s kitchen-gar- 
 den, and that it was worth looking at. Cardinal and 
 convives rose from table, visited the spot and were 
 lost in admiration at what they saw. Day by 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 Rosset, 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 coun- 
 terfeit 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 coffee, 
 not inferior, it is said, but that is doubtful, — to 
 the best Mocha. 
 
 It was the opinion of Pliny, that nature intended 
 asparagus to grow wild, in order that all might eat 
 thereof. That was esteemed the best which grew 
 naturally on the mountainsides. The famous Ra- 
 
212 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 venna asparagus was cultivated with such perfection, 
 that three of them weighed a pound. Lobster sur- 
 rounded with asparagus was a favourite dish; and 
 the rapidity with which the latter should be cooked, 
 is illustrated, as I have said, by a proverb: “ Velocius 
 guam asparagt coguuntur!’’ There is a story told 
 of an intrusive traveller forcing his company at sup- 
 per 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. ‘Oh, it is very well in its way,” said the other, 
 “and we will divide both omelette and asparagus ;”’ 
 and therewith, after carving the first, he cut the 
 bunch in two, and gave the white ends to the impor- 
 tunate visitor. The greatest indignation ever expe- 
 rienced by Caréme, was once at hearing that some 
 guests had eaten asparagus with one of his new 
 entremets, and mixed it in their mouths with iced 
 champagne. 
 
 There is an opinion current in some parts of Eng- 
 land, 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 Gar- 
 cilasso, whetted their appetites before they ate their 
 dead parents. Such form of entombment was ac- 
 counted most dignified and dutiful. If the defunct 
 was lean, the children boiled their parent; but 
 obesity was always honoured by roasting. Fathers 
 and mothers were religiously picked to the very 
 bones, and the bones themselves were then consigned 
 to the earth. This, however, is not an exclusively 
 Indian custom. The Indians only devoured their 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 213 
 
 deceased parents; but I have seen, in Christian Eng- 
 land, 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; but these are sometimes 
 as mischievous 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 acerba virgo 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 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 atten- 
 tion, — extreme vigilance being implied by the latter, 
 — a potato will never came out of the pot triumphantly 
 well boiled. 
 
 The potato has been found in an indigenous state 
 in Chili, on the mountains near Valparaiso and Men- 
 doza; also near Montevideo, Lima, Quito, in Santa 
 Fé da Bogota, and on the banks of the Orizaba, in 
 Mexico. Cobbett cursed the root as being that of the 
 ruin of Ireland, where it is said to have been first 
 planted by Raleigh, on his estate at Youghal, near 
 Cork. Its introduction into England is described as 
 
214 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 the effect of accident, in consequence of the wreck- 
 ing 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 countries the tubers are known by 
 the designation of papas. In passing from Spain into 
 Italy, it naturalised 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 Raleigh’s colonists in Virginia are said to have 
 sent it to England; and 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 Virginiana, as it is called, to distinguish it 
 from the Batata Edulis, or “sweet potato,” is de- 
 scribed; 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 imported it from Spain and the Canaries, 
 and in very considerable quantities. It enjoyed the 
 reputation of possessing power to restore decayed 
 vigour. This reputation has not escaped Shake- 
 speare, who makes Falstaff exultingly remark, in a fit 
 of pleasant excitement, that “it rains potatoes!” 
 The Royal Society of England, in 1663, urgently 
 recommended the extensive cultivation of the root as 
 a resource against threatened famine ; but as late as 
 the end of that century, a good hundred years after 
 its first introduction, the writers on gardening con- 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 215 
 
 tinued to treat its merits with a contemptuous indif- 
 ference ; though one of them does “damn with faint 
 praise,” by remarking, that “they are much used in 
 Ireland and America as bread, and may be propagated 
 with advantage to poor people.” As late as 17109, 
 the potato was not deemed worthy of being named 
 in the “ Complete Gardener ” of Loudon and Wise, and 
 it was not till the middle of the last .century that it 
 became generally used in Britain and North America. 
 The “conservatives of gulosity” of that day con- 
 tinued long to disparagingly describe it as “a root 
 found in the New World, consisting of little knobs, 
 held together by strings: if you boil it well, it can 
 be eaten ; it may become an article of food; it will 
 certainly do for hogs; and though it is rather flatu- 
 lent 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 Cal- 
 cutta 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 neces- 
 sary is, to retain the potato in a perfectly dark place, 
 for some days after the thaw has commenced. In 
 America, where they are sometimes 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 
 
216 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 assert, who profess to have means of best knowing. 
 The potato is said to have been first planted, in Eng- 
 land, 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 since cabbages 
 reached us from Holland. They were first planted 
 in Dorsetshire, by the Ashleys; and I may add here 
 what I have omitted in speaking of it in earlier times, 
 namely, that the Athenians administered the juice of 
 it in cases of slow parturition. Let me further add, 
 that such terms as “cow-cabbage,” “horseradish,” 
 “bull-rush,” and the like, do not imply any connec- 
 tion 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 
 sharp humours of the breast, and keeps the body 
 open.” Spinach, to be truly enjoyed, should never 
 be eaten without liberal saturation of gravy; and 
 French epicures say, “Do not forget the nutmeg.” 
 This vegetable goes excellently with swine’s flesh in 
 every shape, but especially ham, the stimulating 
 flavour of which it strongly modifies. 
 
 Rice, as an article of food, has something remark- 
 
 able in it. Its cultivation destroys life; and when 
 ' the grain is eaten, its value as a supporter of strength 
 is very uncertain. The cultivation of this production, 
 where it does not destroy life, does destroy comfort, 
 and slaves may be compelled, but freemen will not 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 217 
 
 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, 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 colic; and when swallowed 
 with the additional tenacity of texture derived from 
 being made into pudding, — why, then the unhappy 
 consumer is a man to be pitied. Potatoes are best 
 baked, or roasted lightly. 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 /vzcandeau invented by Leo X., who has 
 not the remotest idea of cooking a potato. When 
 the Flemings 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 nutritiveness. As the Romans 
 waxed strong upon the turnip, we may allow that it 
 has some virtues, and that Charles the First’s secre- 
 tary, Lord Townshend, did good service by reintro- 
 ducing 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 
 
218 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 pleas- 
 ant is not always what is proper. Thus the cucum- 
 ber is attractive, but not nutritive; while the onions, 
 at whose very name every man stands with his hand 
 to his mouth, 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 
 unfortunate 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 noth- 
 ing was served but sauces. A dinner of sauces must 
 have been quickly prepared; but, for quick prepara- 
 tion, I know nothing that can vie with a feat accom- 
 plished, on the 18th of March of the present year, at 
 the Freemasons’ Tavern. The ‘“ Round-Catch-and- 
 Canon Club” were to dine there at half-past five 
 p.m. An hour previously, the active secretary, Mr. 
 Francis, vicar choral of St. Paul’s, arrived, to see 
 that “all was right.” Hefoundall wrong. Through 
 some mistake, no company was expected ; and, there 
 being no other dinners ordered for that day, the 
 
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING 219 
 
 weary proprietors, and their chief “aids,” were enjoy- 
 ing a little relaxation. Not only were the high 
 priestesses of the kitchen “out,” but the sacred fires 
 of the altars had followed their example. Great was 
 the horror of the able counter-tenor secretary ; but 
 the difficulty was triumphantly met by the accom- 
 plished officers of the establishment; and, at six 
 o'clock precisely, forty-two of us sat down to so per- 
 fect a banquet, that the shade of Caréme might have 
 contemplated it with a smile 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 lob- 
 ster 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 “full 
 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 
 toward 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 hemlock, and has Alcibiades’s dog, as a prepara- 
 tion toward getting Alcibiades. The sauce-boats 
 were emptied by the guests. The wine was well 
 resorted to after each boat, and a little brandy settled 
 the viand that was represented by the egg sauce. 
 Half the guests, between the excess of lobster sauce 
 and cognac, were all the worse for the banquet; but 
 that proved rather the weakness of their stomachs, 
 than 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 provin- 
 220 
 
SAUCES 221 
 
 cial 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 e¢ ceteras. But let 
 us get back from the supper to the matter of season- 
 ings. 7 
 
 Seasonings 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; but 
 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 man- 
 kind the real worth of this production as a condi- 
 ment, 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 salarium, 
 or “salt-money.” The Mexican rulers punished re- 
 bellious provinces 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 appellation. For 
 above three centuries, soldiers served gvazzs, and sup- 
 ported themselves. Then came “salt-money,” or. 
 salarium, in the shape of a couple of oboli daily to 
 the foot, and a drachma to the cavalry. This was 
 to the common men. The tribunes were, however, 
 
222 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 exorbitantly paid, if Juvenal’s allusion may be trusted 
 wherein he says that: 
 
 “©. . . alter enim, quantum in legione Tribuni 
 Accipiunt, donat Calvine vel Catiene ;” 
 
 or, as it may be translated : 
 
 «¢ Such sums as a full colonel’s coffers swell, 
 He flings to Lola, or to Laura Bell!” 
 
 But this must have been in very late times, previous 
 to which frugality, modesty, and indifferent pay 
 were ever the tribune’s share of the national virtues 
 and their consequences lauded by Livy. The first 
 Czesar doubled the salartum of the army, and de- 
 creed that it should never be reduced. His succes- 
 sors followed the example of increase. Augustus 
 fixed the salt-money at ten asses a day, and by the 
 time of Domitian 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- 
 mills, 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 wholesome beverage, too, 
 in hot weather. 
 
 The Jewish dispensation, unlike that of the early 
 Olympian theology, enforced the use of salt in all 
 
SAUCES 223 
 
 sacrificial ceremonies. That of the Dead Sea was 
 abundant; and Galen pronounced it as the most 
 favourable for seasoning, and for promoting diges- 
 tion. The Greeks learned to call it “divine,” and at 
 last consecrated it to their gods. Spilling 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 Martius was the first of the Roman kings 
 who levied a duty on salt. He was not visited by 
 the gods—as legends say 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 Dordalus says to Toxilus, in the “ Persa,” 
 “ Fodem mihi pretio sal prehibetur que tibi,’ —<“I 
 get my salt at the same price as you do,” —he 
 simply means that his manner of life is as good as 
 that of Toxilus, and that a slave-merchant is as re- 
 spectable 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 prov- 
 erb with a contemptuous meaning, except in Greece, 
 where he who had nothing to dine upon was called a 
 ‘“ salt-licker.” Rome, where it was of such commer- 
 cial importance, honoured it more by giving to 
 
224 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 
 Bathurst 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 Utica, 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 water. It is still procured 
 with most difficulty in Abyssinia, where the clouds 
 are supposed to deposit the crystal in 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 still hotter shores of Africa, 
 blocks weighing from one to two hundredweight 
 have been picked up. Some writers tell us that 
 
SAUCES 226 
 
 ah 
 
 lakes are nothing more than salt plains in solution; 
 and others, that salt plains are merely lakes con- 
 gealed. 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 
 productive. 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 advantage as in the mines of Williska, in 
 Poland. I have seen those near Salzburg, in South- 
 ern Austria; but these are mere salt-cellars, com- 
 pared with the Polish mine, which forms a large sub- 
 terranean city, has its streets, citizens, and coteries, 
 and is an underground 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 the worm-doctors. It is a singular pro- 
 duction. In small quantities it is a stimulating 
 manure; in large quantities it begets sterility. <A 
 little of it accelerates putrefaction, while a large 
 quantity prevents it. Further, it is to be remem- 
 bered, —and I have mentioned the fact in another 
 page, —that the salt in salted meat is not (whatever 
 it may once have been) the table salt, the use of 
 
226 , TABLE TRAITS 
 
 which is so favourable to digestion. In the meat it 
 undergoes a chemical change, by which it deteriorates 
 itself as well 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 con- 
 siderable change in society. And it appears to have 
 been early added to that “significant luxury,” wheat. 
 In Isaiah xliii. 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 country?” It 
 would seem, however, that though the sweet cane 
 may have been known, its uses 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 in Scrip- 
 ture, fell into comparative disuse, after sugar had 
 become a necessary of life, after being first a medi- 
 cine, and then a luxury. The Spaniards received it 
 from the Arabs, and familiarised 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 Indies. God gave the gift, but man 
 has discovered how to abuse it to his own destruc- 
 tion; and, from the sweet food offered by an angel, 
 
SAUCES 227 
 
 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 Romans were fond of brine, — water in 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 refrac- 
 tory gentlemen at the Nightingale Club, by being 
 compelled to swallow a cupful, without drawing 
 breath. Apicius invented a composition 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 
 garum, was originally a shrimp sauce; but it was 
 subsequently made of the intestines of almost any 
 fish, macerated 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 gavum, of which the inventors were so 
 proud, —and particularly of a garum which was 
 prepared in Spain. Flesh instead of fish was occa- 
 sionally used, with no difference in the process of 
 preparation ; and it would be difficult to say which 
 was the nastier. But, perhaps, 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 
 bliss in ignorance. 
 
228 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Pythagoras showed better taste in the science of 
 seasonings, when he took to eating nothing but 
 honey wherewith to flavour his bread. Hybla sounds 
 sweet, the very word smells sweet, from its associ- 
 ation with honey. Aristazeus, who is said to have 
 discovered its: use, merited the patent of nobility, 
 whereby he was declared to have descended from 
 the gods; and the placing the honeycomb and its 
 makers under the protection of Mellona, 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 Czsars monopolised. 
 Cinnamon and cloves were not employed in seasoning 
 until a comparatively modern period. The good 
 people of earlier days preferred verjuice, in certain 
 cases prescribed by Galen. They seemed to havea 
 taste for acids: hence the admiration, both in Greece 
 and Rome, for vinegar and pickles. Vinegar figured 
 in the army statistics of Rome especially; but it 
 once, at least, figured in a still more remarkable way 
 in the statistics of the French army, in the time of 
 Louis XIII., when the Duc de la Meilleraye, grand 
 master of the artillery of France, put down 452,000 
 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 born to 
 
SAUCES 229 
 
 be “ringed,” and that his mission was to rout at the 
 foot of the yoke-elm trees, and turn up truffles! 
 Pliny gravely looked upon the truffle as a prodigy 
 sown by the thunderbolt in autumnal storms. How- 
 ever 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 which 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 be deli- 
 cately 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 indigestion 
 —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, gray, or white within. Its tissue is formed 
 of articulated filaments, between which are spheric 
 vesicles, and in the interior are placed reproductive 
 bodies, small brown spheres, called ‘truffinelles.’ 
 Truffles vegetate to the depth of five or six inches 
 in the high sandy soils of the southwest of France, 
 Piedmont, etc. Their mode of vegetation and repro- 
 duction 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 oil, which is soon impregnated with 
 
230 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 their odour. Poultry is stuffed with them; also 
 geese’s livers, pies, and cooked pork, besides numer- 
 ous vagohis. They possess, as it is said, exciting 
 virtues.” The latter, we suppose, is a paraphrase 
 for the sentiment of “ Falstaff,’’ before cited, “It 
 rains potatoes!’’ Shell-fish had the same reputation 
 in the olden time. “ Tene marsupium,” says Italius 
 to Olympio, in the “ Rudens:”’ 
 
 “‘ Abi atque obsonia propera; sed lepidé volo 
 Molliculas escas, ut ipsa mollicula est.” 
 
 As for the mushroom, if it be not in itself deadly, 
 it has been made the vehicle of death. Agrippina 
 poisoned Claudius in one, and Nero, his successor, 
 had a respect for this production ever after. Tibe- 
 rius, in pagan, and Clement VII., in papal Rome, as 
 well as Charles VI. of France, are also said to have 
 been “approximately” killed by mushrooms. Seneca 
 calls them “voluptuous poison,” and of this poison 
 his countrymen ate heartily, and suffered dreadfully. 
 The mushroom was not rendered harmless by the 
 process of Nicander,—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 
 conveyed in the reply once given by a French curé 
 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 curé, at whose house the prel- 
 
 2 
 
SAUCES 231 
 
 ate had arrived in the course of a visitation tour. 
 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 subor- 
 dinate were once more alone, the former remarked on 
 the uncanonical condition of the household, and asked 
 the curé if he were not aware that, by rule of church, 
 he could maintain but one menagére, who must have 
 attained, at least, forty years of age? “I am quite 
 aware of it, monseigneur,” said the rubicund curé; 
 “but, as you see, I prefer having my iver in 
 two volumes!” 
 
 With respect to the use of spices, it may ie safely 
 said, that the less they are used, the better for the 
 stomach. <A soupcon of 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 
 the palate, the apparent vigour which 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 Am- 
 boyna was a huckstering matter compared with it. 
 Egypt sent Canaan her corn, wine, oil, and linen; 
 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 all 
 dabbled a little in slave-dealing. Thus the men of 
 the tribe that purchased Joseph dealt in spicery only, 
 —a term including balm and myrrh. The Egyptian 
 
232 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 him to the Ismaelites.” The oppo- 
 sition 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 he 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, preferring 
 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, 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 mur- 
 der one for the mere sake of making money by the 
 sale of the body, as was done by a Christian gentle- 
 man of the name of Burke. 
 
 There are some plants used in seasoning which 
 have been esteemed for other virtues besides lending 
 a fillip to the appetite. Others of these seasoning 
 plants have acquired an evil reputation. Thus orach 
 was said to cause pallor and dropsy. Rocket hada 
 
- SAUCES 223 
 
 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. Fennel 
 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 prescribed 
 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 earache, 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 asa present, used to boil the leaves, 
 and serve them at dinner, like spinach. Capers, in 
 the olden time, were vulgar berries, and left for dem- 
 ocratic digestion. “I once saw growing in Italy,” 
 said an Irish traveller, fit to be “own correspondent ”’ 
 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, but shattered his 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 
 
234 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 assafcetida, as a seasoning ingre- 
 dient. Green ginger was also a popular condiment ; 
 and it is commonly eaten in Madagascar at this day. 
 I suppose that, in former times, Hull imported this 
 production in large quantities, and that therefore one 
 of her streets is called “the Land of Green Ginger.” 
 The Romans gave wormwood wine to the charioteers, 
 perhaps considering that the stomachic beverage 
 would secure them from dizziness. 
 
 I have mentioned above that Mithridates patronised 
 rue as a nullifier 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 phar- 
 macy, is a compound medicine, in form of an electu- 
 ary, serving as either a remedy or a preservative 
 against poisons, being also accounted a cordial, 
 opiate, sudorific, and alexipharmic. ‘ Mithridate” 
 is, or rather, I suppose, was, one of the capital medi- 
 cines in the apothecaries’ shops. The preparation of 
 it, according to the direction of the college, is as 
 follows ; and I request my readers to peruse it atten- 
 - tively, and to get it by heart, in case of necessity 
 supervening. Here is the facile recipe: “Take of 
 cinnamon, fourteen drachms; of myrrh, eleven 
 drachms; agaric, spikenard, ginger, saffron, seeds 
 of treacle-mustard, frankincense, Chio turpentine, of 
 
SAUCES 235 
 
 each ten drachms; camel’s hay, costus, Indian leaf, 
 French lavender, long pepper, seeds of hartwort, 
 juice of the rape of cistus, strained storax, opopanax, 
 strained galbanum, balsam of Gilead, or in its stead, 
 expressed oil of nutmegs, Russian castor, of each an 
 ounce; poly-mountain, water-germander, the fruit of 
 the balsam-tree, seeds of the carrot of Crete, bdellium 
 strained, of each seven drachms; Celtic nard, gen- 
 tian root, leaves of dittany of Crete, red roses, seed 
 of Macedonian parsley, the lesser cardamon seeds 
 freed from their husks, sweet fennel seeds, gum 
 Arabic, 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 scinks, 
 of each two drachms and a half; of clarified honey, 
 thrice the weight of all the rest: dissolve the opium 
 first in a little wine, and then mix it with the honey 
 made hot. In the meantime, melt together in an- 
 other vessel, the galbanum, storax, turpentine, and 
 the balsam of Gilead, or the expressed oil of nut- 
 meg” (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 burn; and, as soon as these are 
 melted, add to them the hot honey, first by spoon- 
 fuls, and afterward’ more freely. Lastly, when this 
 mixture is nearly cold, add by degrees the rest of the 
 spices reduced to powder,’’—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 
 
236 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 him, — 
 till the bellies of scinks and the camel’s hay are pro- 
 cured, and till the ingredients are amalgamated “ by 
 degrees,’ —he will, if he survive the poison, the 
 waiting, and the remedy, have deserved to be called, 
 kar é€oxnv, the “patient.” But here are the pastry 
 and the fruits; and there are 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 France, 
 and may be so still, that when an individual had re- 
 ceived permission to cut down one of his trees, it was 
 on condition of his planting two. The planters of 
 vineyards enjoyed many privileges under 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 
 supposed 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 olive, which was the emblem of Peace, the latter 
 being naturally born of Wisdom. But the poisoned 
 shafts of Hercules were made of the olive, perhaps 
 to symbolise those armed neutralities which are gen- 
 erally so fatal to powers with whom the neutrals 
 affect to be at peace. The Autocrat of Russia, for 
 
SAUCES 237 
 
 instance, has been dealing very largely in olive shafts, 
 tipped with death. But the olive was known to the 
 world before Wisdom, taking flesh, sprang in her 
 bright panoply from the brain of her sire, and was 
 called Minerva. From 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 
 Decapolis, on holy ground. The Ancona olives were 
 the most highly esteemed by the Roman patricians, 
 at whose table they opened and closed the banquet. 
 While the olives were greedily swallowed, the ex- 
 pressed 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 
 vitality. Augustus, who was for ever whiningly hop- 
 ing that he might die easily, and for ever chanting 
 the prayer, “Euthanasia!’’ asked Pollio how he 
 might best maintain his health and strength in old 
 age. ‘You have nothing in the world to do,” said 
 Pollio, “ but to drink an abundance of wine, and lubri- 
 cate your imperial carcass with plenty of oil!” —a 
 prescription which does not say much for the medical 
 instruction of Pollio. Olive oil was so scarce at one 
 time, in Europe, that in 817 the Council of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle authorised the priests to manufacture anoint- 
 ing oil from bacon. With regard to the fruit itself, 
 it has not even yet undisputed possession of the 
 public approval ; and I am very much of the opinion 
 of the farmer who, having taken some at his land- 
 lord’s table, expressed his indignation, on reaching 
 home, that he had been served with gooseberries 
 stewed in — brine. 
 
2338 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 The palm-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 afforded him garments, and a bed; and 
 from them he could manufacture 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 palm, is but as 
 a rustic beauty, compared with Cleopatra. Mithri- 
 dates and Lucullus share the glory of making men 
 acquainted with its fruit. From Cerasus, in Asia, 
 Lucullus, no doubt, transplanted a cultivated fruit- 
 tree, of a peculiarly fine sort; but the fruit itself was 
 not unknown to the Romans long anterior to the 
 time of Lucullus. It was slow in acquiring an esteem 
 in Italy. The most extraordinary species of cherry 
 with which I am acquainted, is the Australian cherry, 
 which grows with the stone on the outside. But 
 Nature, 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 
 ' ill-flavoured; but at the heart of each there is a 
 maggot, as fat as one of Rubens’s Cupids, and, 
 saving a slight bitterness, with as much of the taste 
 of the cherry in him as a citizen of ripe Stilton has 
 
SAUCES 239 
 
 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 mag- 
 nitude. There was philosophy in this pleasant con- 
 ceit! If the poor nobleman had had a dish of our 
 cherries, from Kent, Berks, or Oxfordshire, he 
 would not have stood in need of his merry delusion. 
 
 How grateful to the palate is the Armenian apri- 
 cot, blushing, in its precocity, like a young nymph; 
 or the Persian peach, for a couple of which the 
 Romans 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 deadliness 
 when it was transplanted. Perhaps the peculiarly 
 peachy odour of prussic acid may have contributed 
 to give currency to a very long-lived, but entirely 
 foundationless, tradition, — except, indeed, that poi- 
 son may be extracted from the kernel; but so may 
 arsenic from a Turkey carpet, and, indeed, from 
 apple-pips also, as Sir Fitzroy Kelly told the jury, 
 when endeavouring to save from the gallows a man 
 who had murdered 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 
 life, 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 
 
240 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 dear at a farthing each. In the same century cher- 
 ries used to appear at the royal table in May. To 
 effect this, lime 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 com- 
 pound of luscious savours, the pine, —a fruit which, 
 in the seventeenth century, was religiously patronised 
 by the Jesuits. The same sort of sanction was given 
 in the East to dates, though these were fashionable 
 in Rome, 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 patronised by 
 Louis XIV. The ladies used to carry them about, 
 and occasionally suck them, the operation being con- 
 sidered excellent to produce ruby lips. The citron 
 was hardly less popular than the Reine Claude plum, 
 which received its pretty name from the queen of 
 Francis I., and 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 penetrates, in order 
 to accomplish its productiveness. In Sicily, they 
 acupuncture the tree, and drop into it a little oil, 
 and this is said to improve the flavour of the fruit. 
 To what I have previously said of the peach, I may 
 
SAUCES 241 
 
 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. 
 Nevertheless, 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 “celibate, like the fly 
 in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweet- 
 ness; 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.” However this may be, apples were 
 once productive of matrimony in Wales. When the 
 fruit-dealers there could not find a market, they pro- 
 claimed 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. 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 
 
242 _ TABLE TRAITS 
 
 dams had been killed in a storm. This was a more 
 creditable affection than that of Marc Antony’s 
 daughter for a lamprey, which she adorned with ear- 
 rings, 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 would have called a 
 “triste platsanterte, a l’ Anglaise ;” and, by the way, 
 I may remark, that Theophile de Garanciéres 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 - 
 unadvisable to eat cherries with potentates.” In 
 English this might mean, “Do not make too free 
 with your betters.’ Few royal families, however, 
 have given their inferiors more frequent opportu- 
 nities to ‘eat cherries” with them, than that of 
 Prussia. I am reminded of this while upon the sub- 
 ject of pineapple, a slice of which was once given by 
 Frederick William III. to a lad employed in the 
 gardens at Sans Souci. ‘“ Here,” said the king, 
 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 
 
SAUCES 243 
 
 all the most delightful 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 sausage!” The courtiers 
 laughed aloud; and the king, philosophising 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 pineapple the flavour of 
 the melon ; another, of the pear; a third, the plum. 
 ‘Yon lad, in his sphere of tastes, finds therein 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 Cas- 
 tle, 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 kindly asked him what he would like to 
 take. The Etonian’s eyes glanced hurriedly 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 recog- 
 nised the favourite “tuck” he was in the habit of 
 indulging in at the shop in Eton, and he asked for 
 it according to the local phrase in fashion. Revert- 
 ing to the lad who compared pineapple to German 
 sausage, I may remark, that pineapple 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 Rome, Gaul, and Spain, 
 
244 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 will do. 
 St. Francis de Paul introduced one sort into France 
 when he paid a medical visit to Louis XI. The 
 species was named from the saint, “le bon Chrétien.” 
 
 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 in 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, King of Poland, into fits. 
 It is the best fruit that can be taken as an accom- 
 paniment to wine; and the best sorts for such a 
 purpose are the Ribstone Pippin and the Coster Pear- 
 main. The golden apples stolen by Hercules were 
 lemons; and they are suspected to have been the 
 «Median apples” of Theophrastus. The Romans, 
 at first, employed this Asiatic fruit only as a means 
 for keeping moths out of garments; from this house- 
 hold use it passed into the ancient pharmacopeeia, 
 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 civilisation. The orange disputes with 
 the lemon the honour of being the “ Hesperides 
 apples,’ — which is a dispute of a very Hibernian 
 character. China was probably its native place; and 
 
SAUCES 245 
 
 the Portuguese oranges are merely descendants of the 
 original “ Chinaman.” It was not known in France 
 ' until introduced there by the Constable de Bourbon. 
 In England, an orange, stuck full of cloves, was a 
 fitting New Year’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 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 commonly employed in Scripture as a 
 symbol, so an American poet has taken it, with its 
 Scriptural allusions, to illustrate worldly marriages, 
 of which he says, that — 
 
 so, . . they are like unto 
 Jeremiah’s figs: 
 
 The good are very good indeed ; 
 The bad, not fit for pigs.” 
 
 The authorities of Attica were so fond of their 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 athlete ate of them before appearing in the 
 
246 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 Doctor Madden says 
 that we should never eat 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 peo- 
 ple 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 philoso- 
 phers in an uncontrollable appetite for figs. Who 
 has not heard af the famous Oxford fig, which, in its 
 progress to luscious maturity, was protected by an 
 inscription appended to it, conveying information 
 to the effect 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 
 Kew. Attired 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 unwashed 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 
 
SAUCES 247 
 
 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 
 Persian 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 Mithridatic 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 over- 
 thrown, was as follows: “Pound, with care, two 
 walnuts, two dried figs, twenty pounds of rue, anda 
 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 
 little wine, —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 zucog. 
 to the upper gallery of the theatre, and take delight 
 in pelting them on the bald head of the przetor, who 
 sat below. That official knew the offender, and was 
 rewarded for bearing the attack good-humouredly ; 
 and thence, perhaps, the proverb which characterises 
 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 
 
248 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 lumi- 
 nary out of the firmament, by making a horrid up- 
 roar, 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 eclipsed planet by attacking the dragon that was 
 supposed to be swallowing it, with a tintamarre of 
 caldron, kettle, tongs, and trivet. 
 
 The Athenians were great hands at dumplings, 
 consisting of fruit, covered with a light and per- 
 fumed paste; and Rhodes, verifying the proverb, 
 that “extremes meet,” was as famous for its ginger- 
 bread as for its Colossus. The Roman wedding-cake 
 was a simple mixture of sweet wine and flour; and 
 the savzlum 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, com- 
 pounded of sow’s flank, pheasant, peacock, ham, and 
 wild boar, all hashed together, and covered with 
 crust. If emperors invented pies, so did philosophers 
 create cakes; and the /zbuna 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 Roman cakes ; 
 but he was a bold man who added chalk, and so in- 
 vented the placenta. Yet the placenta was eaten as 
 readily as Charles XII. swallowed raspberry-tarts, 
 Frederick II. Savoy cakes, or Marshal Saxe — who 
 
SAUCES 249 
 
 loved pastry, pastry-cooks, and pastry-cooks’ daugh- 
 ters —- macaroons, 
 
 The Church honoured pastry, — or would so pious 
 a king as St. Louis have raised the pastry-cooks to 
 the dignity of a guild? The Abbey of St. Denis, 
 long before this, stipulated with the tenant-farmers, 
 that they should deliver 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 pre- 
 served fruits, and every one was expected to help 
 himself. Certainly our refined neighbours had some 
 questionable customs. See what L’Etoile says 
 (1596): “Les confitures séches et les massepains y 
 étaient si peu épargnés que les dames et demoiselles 
 étaient contraintes de s’en décharger sur les pages et 
 laquis, auxquels on les baillait tout entiers.”’ 
 
 Prince George of Denmark, the consort of Queen 
 Anne, was never suspected of intermeddling with the 
 foreign policy of the kingdom; but he was some- 
 thing renowned for his appetite, and for the bent of 
 it toward 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 something worse than drawing off 
 the hounds, or unloading the fowling-pieces, because 
 the “castle bell’? was peremptorily ringing to lunch- 
 eon. 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 sur- 
 
250 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 rounded 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 
 remarkable 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 Abra- 
 ham himself was but a foreign heathen, from Ur of 
 the Chaldees; and to claim primeval antiquity for 
 the Jews is only as absurd as 1f 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 chymifica- 
 tion 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 
 Doctor Beaumont’s “ Table,’ drawn out to show the 
 mean time of digestion in the stomach (or chymifica- 
 tion) 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. 
 Fricasséed chicken is not more facile of digestion 
 
SAUCES 251 
 
 than boiled salt beef, both requiring two hours and 
 three-quarters. Boiled mutton, broiled beefsteak, 
 and soft-boiled eggs, take three hours; while roast 
 beef and old strong cheese trouble the stomach for 
 some three hours and a half. Roast duck, and fowls, 
 whether boiled or roasted, are alike slow of digestion : 
 they require four hours as their mean time of chymi- 
 fication, 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 Psy- 
 chological Medicine, for January, 1851, a periodical 
 edited by Dr. Forbes Winslow. I believe I do not 
 err in attributing the article in question (“Mental 
 Dietetics”) to the able pen of the accomplished edi- 
 tor himself, than whom ‘no man has a better right to 
 speak ex cathedrd 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 Doctor 
 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 animal system, it 
 is obvious that the health, both of the body and of 
 the mind, must depend on the quality and quantity 
 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 sys- 
 tem is very different. 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 
 
252 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 to diminish the proportion of the globules. The 
 result is obvious, A large quantity of stimulating ani- 
 mal food, without a proper amount of exercise, aug- 
 ments the number of the red globules, and diminishes 
 the aqueous part of the blood. Hence the nervous 
 system becomes oppressed, the brain frequently con- 
 gested, and the intellectual faculties no longer enjoy 
 their wonted activity. In the meantime, 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 preternaturally 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 whose flanks grow great, 
 Swell’d by the lard of others’ meat.” 
 — HERRICK. 
 
 PaRA, “near,” and sztos, “corn,” pretty well ex- 
 plain 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 sub- 
 stance 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 
 invidious 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 Amphitryon of the hour. 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 con- 
 scious 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, 
 
 253 
 
254 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 not always unattended. The victims whom they 
 flattered sometimes lent them a slave. Their ward- 
 robe seldom extended beyond two suits, one for the 
 public, and one for wear at home. They looked 
 abroad for dupes, just as our ring-droppers used to 
 do, and for the same purpose. The parasite gener- 
 ally attached himself to the first simple-looking per- 
 sonage he encountered, provided he bore with him 
 proofs of being a man who could afford to live well. 
 Simplex usually swallowed with complacency all the 
 three-piled flattery with which the parasite troubled 
 him ; and if he were expecting friends to dinner, the 
 gastronome, 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 
 incommon. M. Prudhon really started a parasitical 
 precept, when he tried to establish that what be- 
 longed to one man belonged to a great many others 
 besides. But if, as regarded his own share in prop- 
 erty that was not his own, the parasite was so fara 
 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 
 
THE PARASITE 255 
 
 ate, it was matter of perfect indifference 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 was senseless, provided the blows 
 were afterward paid for in brimming glasses. 
 
 He was always first at a feast; and as he was as 
 common 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 bully, but porter also ; 
 and his office was not merely to knock down the 
 drunken, but to carry them out when incapable of 
 performing that office for themselves. 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 Antiphzeus, “here 
 I am, an Antzeus. 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 depart- 
 ment ! 
 
 Others boasted of their powers of fasting, — always 
 provided 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 Philip- 
 pides, who, like Hood’s friend, was so thin, that, 
 
256 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 when he stood sideways, 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, 
 like 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 noonday sun, 
 like a grasshopper ; do without oil, like the dust ; walk 
 barefooted 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 (Zets 6 Pidws) was its patron saint! 
 As Jove entered where he chose, ate and drank of 
 what most took his fancy, and, after creating an 
 atmosphere 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 followed the sacrifices 
 to Hercules; proof enough that they were accounted 
 as being of the same kidney as heroes. In later 
 times came degenerate men and manners; and then, 
 instead of honourable 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 
 parasite was ready to laud every act of the master of 
 the feast, — 
 
 “. . . laudare paratus 
 Si bene ructavit, si rectum minxit amicus,” 
 
 and to eulogise a great number of other acts besides, 
 as may be found noted by those who are very curious, 
 
THE PARASITE 207 
 
 and not overnice, in the fragments of Diodorus of 
 Sinope. 
 
 The fellows were witty, too, however degraded. 
 When Cheerephon had, uninvited, slipped into a 
 vacant position at a wedding-dinner, the gyne- 
 conomes, 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 with- 
 draw.’ “I do not dispute the law,” said the para- . 
 site, “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 professional 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 
 affected great fright, but afterward remarked, “I will, 
 in my turn, terrify you, O king; be good enough to 
 give me a talent.”’ 
 
 Clisophus, 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 mon- 
 arch 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 
 
258 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 parasites of Louis XIV. flattered him as grossly as 
 the original practitioners 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 smile which displayed his own incisors, that 
 nobody had teeth nowadays. And again, when the 
 king, on his seventieth birthday, 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 preacher 
 was at the royal table that day. The same 
 parasitical spirit prevailed at the English court, 
 especially when bolster neck-cloths were worn, 
 simply because the king was compelled to wear 
 one, in consequence of a disease in the glands of 
 the neck. But, to translate the sentiment of the 
 French poet, — 
 
 ‘From royal example slaves have never shrunk : 
 When Auguste tippled, Poland soon got drunk. 
 When the great monarch breathed the air of love, 
 Hey, presto, pass! Paris was Venus’ grove! 
 
 But turn’d a churchman and devout, alas ! 
 The courtiers ran and beat their breasts at mass.” 
 
THE PARASITE 259 
 
 It is said by ancient writers that the species of 
 flattery which Clisophus paid Philip, was obligatory 
 on all the guests and officials in the ancient royal 
 courts of Arabia. 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 law- 
 givers 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 hun- 
 dred men; they were lodged, clothed, and tended 
 like the king, with whom they daily sat at meat ; 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 live 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 all flies, for he 
 has imbibed the blood of him who is king over all 
 men.” The flattery 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 a roar of laughter. 
 The king asked, “ Wherefore?” seeing that the para- 
 site could not have heard the joke. “True,” said 
 Chirisophus; “but I saw that your Majesty had 
 
260 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 _heard something worth laughing at, and I laughed in 
 sympathy.” This species of parasite is not uncom- 
 mon in English houses; but perhaps they do their 
 office more refinedly than Chirisophus. 
 
 The flatterers of the younger Dionysius were far 
 more disgusting in their adulation. They were sim- 
 ply absurd, when they pretended to be short-sighted, 
 like him, and to be unable to see a dish unless they 
 thrust their noses into it. But they were filthy fol- 
 lowers when they offered their faces for the king to 
 “void his rheum”’ upon, and even went to extremes 
 of nastiness at which human nature shudders, but at 
 which Dionysius smiled. And yet Dionysius was 
 hailed by some of them as a god. It was the cus- 
 tom, we are told, in Sicily, for every individual to 
 make sacrifices, in his own house, before 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 
 before inanimate deities, while he went through the 
 whole duty before Dionysius as his god. The Athe- 
 nians, it will be remembered, were horror-stricken at 
 such impious laudation as this. They fined Demades 
 ten talents for having proposed to award divine hon- 
 ours to Alexander; and Timagoras, 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, in- 
 deed, let us do justice to Alexander himself. He 
 had more than misgiving touching his own alleged 
 divinity. He had once — “his custom in the after- 
 
THE PARASITE 261 
 
 noon ’’ — eaten and drunk so enormously, that in the 
 evening he was forced to a necessity which compels 
 very mortal people,—take physic. He made as 
 many contortions, on swallowing it, as a refractory 
 child; and Philarches, his parasite, remarked, with a 
 rascally hypocritical smile, “Ah! what must be the 
 sufferings of mortal man under such medicine, 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 Nicos- 
 tratus of Argos quite as impiously flattered the sov- 
 ereign of Persia, when, for the sake of currying favour 
 with that majestic barbarian, he every night, in his 
 own house, prepared a solemn supper, richly pro- 
 vided, and offered to the genius of the king (76 daiuon 
 tov BaotAéws), for no better reason than that he had 
 learned that such was the custom in Persia. Whether 
 he profited or not by this delicate attention, Theo- 
 pompus does not inform us. 
 
 The Anactes or princes of the royal family of 
 Salamis maintained two distinct families, in whom, if 
 I understand Athenzeus 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, worm- 
 ing themselves into their confidence, getting invited 
 to their tables, and then reporting to the Promalangai 
 all they had heard. The last-named took such por- 
 tions of the report as were worth communicating to 
 
262 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 the Anactes, with whom they sat at table, where such 
 a dish of scandal was daily 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 
 extolled the easiness of their life, compared, for in- 
 stance, 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 con- 
 trived to get possession of a kingdom; and the din- 
 ners they gave, and the government they maintained, 
 are matters to which description can hardly do jus- 
 tice. 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 ” (apéckuves xai kédaxes), They murdered 
 their sovereign, and, by a coup-d’état, possessed them- 
 selves 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 
 absurd sort of justice at the gates of Erythra, where 
 they sat decked out in purple and gold. They were 
 sandalled like women, wore ornaments only suitable 
 to females, and sat down to dinner in diadems that 
 dazzled the company. 
 
THE PARASITE 263 
 
 The guests were once free citizens, who were now 
 compelled to bear the litters of their parvenu mas- 
 ters, 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 ob- 
 jection was only made at the price of death. The 
 unhappy women were nothing the safer from insult 
 by the decease of their natural protectors; and the 
 scenes at the palace were such as only the uncleanest 
 of demons could rejoice in. If the authorities had 
 reason to be grave, the whole city was compelled to 
 affect sorrow ; and duly appointed officers went round, 
 with hard-thonged whips, to scourge a sense of “de- 
 cent 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 courage by Chian wine, and 
 swept their oppressors into Hades; and, for years 
 afterward, commemorative banquets celebrated the 
 - restoration of the people from the oppression of the 
 parasites. 
 
 I would recommend those who would see the para- 
 ‘site in action, to study the comedies of Plautus, 
 wherein he figures as necessarily as the impertinent 
 valet in a Spanish comedy. Plautus calls the para- 
 sites poet@, as being given to lying; and it is singu- 
 lar 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 “dull sea- 
 son :” it was when the wealthy were at their villas; 
 at which time the parasites dined upon nothing, in 
 town, with good “Duke Humphrey.’ When the 
 
264 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 din- 
 ners to him. Before the era of printing, the parasite, 
 with his jests and histories, was a sort of living cir- 
 culating library. Saturion (another of Plautus’s pic- 
 tures 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, “lit- 
 erary,” they were not at all in love with science, or 
 the improvements wrought by its application. Wit- 
 ness the bitterness with which Plautus makes one 
 denounce the sun-dial, then of recent introduction. 
 Before that telltale appeared, dinners used to be 
 served when people were hungry; but now even 
 hungry people wait for the appointed hour. In short, 
 throughout life, they worked but for the sake of the 
 banquet and wine-pot; and, even after death, they 
 longed for libations, as appears in the epitaph on the 
 parasite, Sergius of Pola, who is made to say, from 
 the grave: | 
 
 «¢ Si urbani perhiberi vultis 
 Arenti meo cineri, 
 Cantharo piaculum vinarium festinate.” 
 
 ‘Tf you’ve any regard for this corpse here of mine, 
 Be so good as to damp it with hogsheads of wine.” 
 
THE PARASITE 265 
 
 Finally, these diners-out by profession were essen- 
 tially 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 cen- 
 tury may be found in the Captain Cormorant of 
 gvmsteys ‘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 something more of decency than did 
 their ancient predecessors. Modern flattery, like 
 modern 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 of Utopia and the 
 Golden Age 
 
 THE good Archbishop Fénélon, in his “ Voyage 
 dans l’Ile des Plaisirs,’ cites some charming ex- 
 amples of the pleasant way in which people lived in 
 the Utopian land of Cocagne, which he describes 
 from imagination, and where the laws were charac- 
 terised by more good sense than distinguishes the 
 legislation of the Utopian authorities of More. 
 
 The “Voyage” of Fénélon 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 will tell you what sort of 
 life I vouchsafed to men in the early ages of crea- 
 tion. 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 excel- 
 lent flavour and quality. The tables were covered 
 
 with fish which floated into the kitchens, and cour- 
 266 
 
THE TABLES OF UTOPIA 267 
 
 teously 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 
 vagouts were near the guests, who dipped in, and 
 took therefrom, according to their fancy. Every one 
 could eat of what he pleased; and all that he ate 
 was sweet and succulent. There were countless 
 pomegranate-seeds for seasoning; little pdtés and 
 grives, done to a turn, insinuated themselves into the 
 mouths of the banqueters ; and tarts got smashed in 
 trying to force their way into the throat. The chil- 
 dren played with sow-paps and other delicacies as 
 they would with toys; and the men were gigantic in 
 height, and obese in figure.” 
 
 The above is a specimen of the classical idea of 
 that delicious — 
 
 «. , . Land of Cocagne, 
 That Elysium of all that is friand and nice, 
 Where for hail they have bonbons, and claret for rain, 
 And the skaters, in winter, show off on cream-ice.” 
 
 It is a theme with which modern 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 birthdays by the sun. It 
 has been well treated by Béranger, who thus de- 
 scribes, through my imperfect translation, his own 
 impressions of — 
 
 A JOURNEY TO THE LAND OF COCAGNE 
 
 ‘¢ Ho, friends, every one! 
 Let us up and be gone; 
 To where care is not known, 
 Let us hasten away! 
 
268 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Yes; fired with champagne, 
 I reel o’er the plain, 
 And see dear Cocagne 
 
 In its sunny array. 
 
 “Oh! land full of glee, — 
 Here long may I be, 
 And laugh merrilie 
 At Fate’s changeable way. 
 For here — what a treat ! — 
 I may love, drink, and eat, 
 And — this makes it more sweet — 
 There is nothing to pay! 
 
 ““ 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 fun, 
 
 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, 
 All 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; 
 
THE TABLES OF UTOPIA 
 
 Where the fountains so gay 
 
 Not with water do play, 
 
 But are sparkling away 
 With rich, rosy, old wine! 
 
 ‘¢ Here, the baking’s begun; 
 There, the baking is done; — 
 See the folks how they run, 
 
 With beef, mutton, and veal, 
 And the eaters think fit 
 That the man who lacks wit 
 Shall be made a ‘ turnspit,’ 
 And be bound to the wheel. 
 
 ‘¢ To the palace I haste, 
 With two Falstatfs 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 Venus quite round, 
 And young Cupid a squab. 
 
 ss 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. 
 
 ‘6 Now, good-natured lasses, 
 To the music of glasses, 
 As the sweet dessert passes, 
 Let’s laugh the time by. 
 
 269 
 
270 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Let fools sigh and snuffle, 
 And merriment muffle, a 
 But you, dears, shall 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 drinking deep, 
 
 And light 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? 
 For, while singing, I thought, — 
 But my friends, we are caught, — 
 *Tis 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 banquets, which are described by 
 More, present an imaginary view of society in an- 
 
THE TABLES OF UTOPIA 271 
 
 other extreme. The learned chancellor, amid much 
 invented nonsense, pictures the manners of the citi- 
 zens of Amaurat after the fashion of those of Crete 
 and Lacedzmonia, especially with 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 
 realised 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 neither amusing nor useful. 
 
 Sir Thomas describes the citizens of Amaurat as 
 possessing provision markets abundantly supplied 
 with herbs, fruits, bread, fowl, and cattle. The lat- 
 ter were previously slain in extramural slaughter- 
 houses, well furnished with running water, for washing 
 away the filth after killmg. The butchers were slaves 
 (for serfdom “was a peculiar institution” 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,” 
 we are told by the author, “there are great halls that 
 lie at an equal distance from one another, and are 
 marked by peculiar 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 stewards 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 pro- 
 visions. But they take more care of their sick than 
 of any others. . . . After the steward of the hospi- 
 tals has taken for them whatever the physician does 
 
272 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 tranibors, and ambassadors, and strangers, if there 
 are any, which, indeed, falls out but seldom, and for 
 whom there are houses well furnished, 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 will may eat 
 at home, yet none does it willingly, since it is both 
 an indecent and foolish thing for any to give them- 
 selves 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 uneasy 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 round all the women of every 
 family by turns. They sit at three or more tables, 
 according to their numbers; the men sit toward the 
 wall, and the women sit on the other 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,” etc. 
 
THE TABLES OF UTOPIA 273 
 
 But, to return from this public nursery to the public 
 dining-hall, «all 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 
 Metueteserve toose 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 for- 
 mality of dining.” The whole formality was bad 
 enough, and that last mentioned was a Doric custom 
 prevailing in Crete. As to the personal arrange- 
 ments at these Utopian tables, the infelicitous guests 
 stood much upon their order of precedence: the Sy- 
 phogrant and his wife, the guddige Frau Syphogrant- 
 inn, 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 their mirth, and improve their man- 
 ners ; and this Spartan custom was occasionally imi- 
 tated 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 gourmands might leave, or were 
 obliged to be content with the plainer fare allotted 
 to them. 
 
 During this delectable process, the young could 
 
274 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 morality. The Romans 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 enlarge- - 
 ments,’ but encouraged the young to follow 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 des- 
 patched quickly, because work awaited the diners, 
 while the supper-eaters had nothing to do afterward 
 but sleep. This must have been all terribly dreary, if 
 it had ever been realised. 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 burn 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 noinconvenience. 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 Roman 
 
THE TABLES OF UTOPIA 275 
 
 dinners. These were seldom born slaves; indeed, of 
 born slaves among the Greeks or Romans, the num- 
 _ bers were fewer than might be reasonably imagined. 
 Those who became authors or teachers were the dis- 
 tinguished and illustrious of their class; and it was 
 they who relieved 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 read- 
 ing slaves was Andronicus, the inventor of dramatic 
 poetry. Plautus, the witty, but coarse play-writer, 
 miller, and Jack of all trades, was a slave. Terence 
 was also a dramatist, and not only a slave, but a 
 negro slave. A®sop the fabulist, Phzedrus, 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 forward ; not only to induce them to make the 
 first step out of infidelity ; but, having made it, rather 
 to make a second in advance toward Christ, than go 
 backward again in the direction of the dazzling unin- 
 telligibilities of the Capitoline Jove. 
 
 From slavery, if we turn our eyes toward mere 
 
276 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 Rome. 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; but he 
 derived some portion of nobility from his mother. 
 Juvenal, too, was not only poor and a poet, —a con- 
 dition that could draw upon it only a serf’s contempt, 
 — but he was, moreover, an exceedingly angry poet. 
 In equal proportion as he was poor, angry, and satir- 
 ical in poetry, was Lucian 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 
 philosophy were trodden by Demosthenes, the black- 
 smith. Socrates was the ill-featured, but original- . 
 minded, son of a mason and midwife. Epicurus was 
 only rich in a valueless boast of being descended 
 from Ajax; and Isocrates, whose father manufactured 
 the musical ancestry from which are descended the 
 modern families of pianoforte and fiddle, was also 
 one of the immortal race of intellectual giants. 
 Of other writers we may remark, that Quintus Cur- 
 tius, whose “ Alexander the Great”’ is the first his- 
 torical romance that ever was written, and contains 
 the best description of a Babylonian banquet that 
 ever was painted in words, was of an ignoble family. 
 Celsus was, at least, not a Roman citizen, though 
 resident at Rome; and Plutarch was just ‘“ respect- 
 able,” and nothing more, —though to be worthy of 
 
~ 
 
 THE TABLES OF UTOPIA 277 
 
 respect, as the term implies, 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 wor- 
 shipped 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 Plinys, 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 ; 
 Pieetender’ and chivalrous Tibullus,—a Latin Sir 
 Philip Sidney ; the profligate Sophocles; A®schylus, 
 the bottle-drainer ; and the lofty Euripides : all these 
 mounted Pegasus with golden spurs, and gave glori- 
 ous dinners to guests with whom they could contend 
 in the battle of brains. Some, like Martial, got their 
 mouths filled with the sugar-candy of imperial recom- 
 pense. Czesar, the commentator, was the descend- 
 ant of the Sabine kings, and the founder of an 
 empire. In Plato we see the double condition of 
 aristocrat and slave. From 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 him,—I mean Bacon,—and Bacon 
 naturally brings me from my digression to the subject 
 of “table traits” in imaginary Utopias. This phil- 
 osopher, in his « New Atlantis,” is even more infelic- 
 
278 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 itous 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 
 jolly aspect than those drawn by Sir Thomas More. 
 For instance: “I will not hold you long with recount- 
 ing of our brewhouses, bakehouses, and kitchens, 
 where are made divers drinks, breads, and meats, 
 rare and of special effects. 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 thin parts, to 
 insinuate into the body, and yet without all biting 
 sharpness, or fretting; insomuch as some of them 
 put upon the back of your hand will, 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 
 
THE TABLES OF UTOPIA 279 
 
 of them so beaten and made tender and mortified, 
 yet without all corrupting, as a weak heat of the > 
 stomach will 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 will 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 banquets, than anything to 
 be met with among the philosophers. The inhabit- 
 ants of the coast of Malabar believe that the double 
 cocoas of the Moluccas, annually thrown on their 
 shore by the waves, and joyfully 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 phenomenon, and 
 a very pretty illustration of the theory of seeds trans- _ 
 ported by winds and currents, I refer all curious 
 inquirers to the “ Annals of My Village,” by a Lady. 
 In the meantime, 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 magical 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. 
 
280 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 There they sip the sweet fruit of that palm-tree, and leave 
 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. 
 
 Oh! to see them at sunset, when down by the shore 
 Of their own Malabar in gay clusters they stand, 
 Like spirits of light shedding softness all 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, 
 Flinging glances and handfuls of roses, in showers, 
 That their lovers can’t tell, as they bend ’neath 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! 
 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, link’d in 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. 
 
 Oh, who would not like to pass summer away 
 
 Amid scenes such as this? Oh, who would not love 
 With Malabar’s daughters, at twilight, to play, 
 
 And taste the ripe fruit of that dark coral-grove ? 
 
 The Malabar palm was not the only tree of its 
 kind that used to afford holidays and banquetings to 
 the people of the East, that is, according to the 
 
THE TABLES OF UTOPIA 281 
 
 poets. The Talipot palm of Ceylon, or, as the 
 natives somewhat unmusically call it, “lanka dwipa,” 
 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 immediately 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 lips. It was, however highly esteemed, 
 not such a present as Demetrius Poliorcetes made to 
 Lamia, after that accomplished courtesan 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 250 talents, 
 which, by the way, he had compelled the reluctant 
 Athenians to contribute ; and this he sent to Lamia, 
 saying, that it was merely “for soap.” The extrava- 
 gant lady spent it all in one single, but consuming, 
 feast! How pleasantly, by contrast, shines that 
 other courtesan, Leazena, whose wit made guests for- 
 get 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 
 accomplices 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. 
 
Table Traits of England in Early 
 
 Times 
 
 WueEN 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 all 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 re- 
 moved from the cunning and wickedness of the rest 
 of the world; and other writers contrast them favour- 
 ably with the Irish, who are said to have fed on 
 human flesh, to have had enormous appetites for such 
 food, and to have been given to the nasty habit of 
 devouring their deceased fathers; but it is not un- 
 common for others, as well as for Irish sons, to 
 
 devour, at least, their parents’ substance, even at the 
 282 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES 283 
 
 present day. The food of an Irish child was cer- 
 tainly illustrative of character,—we should rather 
 say that the solemnity of offering the first food to a 
 child was characteristic. Caius Julius Solinus, a 
 writer of the first century, says that, “when a Hiber- 
 nian mother gives birth to a male child, 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 Czesar, our stalwart sires sup- 
 ported their thews and sinews on milk and flesh, — 
 the diet of a pugilist. We see how much progress 
 was made by the time of Constantine, — the Constan- 
 tine 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 innumerable multitudes 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 aboriginal ancestry were very little superior to 
 the New Zealanders. They were, perhaps, more un- 
 civilised, 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 no means certain that we do not 
 wrong the New Zealanders by suggesting their pos- 
 sible inferiority to the Britons, seeing that the latter 
 
284 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 are very strongly suspected of being guilty of the 
 most revolting cannibalism. 
 
 They were clever enough to brew mead and ale; 
 but wine and civilisation were brought to them by 
 their enemies, the Romans, —invaders whom, for 
 some reasons, they might have welcomed with a 
 sentiment akin to the line in Béranger: 
 
 “‘ Vivent nos amis! nos amis, les ennemis!” 
 
 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 locality occupied by modern Belgravia, tore 
 their food with teeth and nails, or hacked at it with a 
 wretched knife, as bad as anything of the sort now 
 in common use in Gaul. In short, they committed a 
 thousand solecisms, the very idea of which is suffi- 
 cient to make the Sybarites of Belgravia very much 
 ashamed of their descent from the savages of Britain. 
 
 It was characteristic of the sort of civilisation 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 solid joints of flesh-meat, 
 boiled, 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 more ac- 
 counted of than the calf he cut up into collops. 
 The cook, in fact, was a slave; and was as uncere- 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES 285 
 
 moniously 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 follow this 
 civilising 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 ends were used in place of napkins, the 
 delicacy would be of a somewhat 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 con- 
 sideration; and, the guest having helped himself, 
 the attendant went through the same 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 drunken- 
 ness. 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 
 
286 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 wherein 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 in- 
 ‘creased discomfort. They neither knew nor tolerated 
 the use of table-cloths or plain steel forks; but their 
 bill 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 annihilat- 
 ing 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 under 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 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 of the wealthy. Their beverage 
 was of a very bilious character, — spicy and cor- 
 dialed ; namely, hippocras, piment, morat, and mead, 
 The drink of the humbler classes partook of a more 
 choleraic quality. 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 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES 287 
 
 terms ; for dinner, as I have said, is the abbreviation 
 of dixiéme heure, or ‘ten o'clock,” the time at which 
 all people sat down to a solid repast in the days of 
 the first Williams. 
 
 In the two following centuries, cooks and kings 
 launched into far greater magnificence than had 
 ever, hitherto, been seen in England. Richard II. 
 entertained ten thousand guests daily at his nu- 
 merous 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 dinners; for cooks and convives 
 considered them with contempt. As a show of 
 moderation, the old four meals a day 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 the life of the Germans would be, 
 Du lit 4 la table; de la table au lit.” 
 
 To have things “brennying like wild-fire,’ was the 
 characteristic of the cookery of the period. Con- 
 fectionery 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: 
 
288 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 ‘¢ Ye shall have rumney and malespine, 
 Both ypocrasse and vernage wine; 
 Mountrasse and wyne of Greke, 
 Both algrade and despice eke, 
 Antioche and bastarde, 
 
 Pyment also and garnarde, 
 Wyne of Greke and muscadell, 
 Both clary, pyment, and Rochelle.” 
 
 Ricobaldi of Ferrara, writing, about the year 1300, 
 of the Italian social condition in the age of Freder- 
 ick 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 tallow 
 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, fru- 
 gality has been changed for sumptuousness; every 
 thing exquisite is sought after in dress, — gold, silver, 
 pearls, silks, and rich furs.” 
 
 The Household Book of the Earl of Northumber- 
 land admirably illustrates the interior and table life 
 of the greater nobles of the period of Henry VII. 
 In this well-known and well-kept record, the family 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES 289 
 
 is described as consisting of 166 persons, masters 
 and servants; and hospitable reckoning is allowed 
 for more than half a hundred strangers who are ex- 
 pected daily to partake of the earl’s good cheer. The 
 cost for each individual, 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 expendi- 
 ture 41,178 17s. 8a. More than two-thirds of this 
 is consumed in meat, drink, and firing; namely £797 
 I1s. 2a. The book carefully states the number 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 5¢@. in summer; with 2d. additional 
 daily for the keep of a horse. A little more than a 
 quarter of wheat, estimated at 5s. 8¢. per quarter, is 
 allowed for every month throughout the year; with 
 this, 250 quarters of malt at 4s. (two hogsheads 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 Allhallow’s 
 tidep atwi3s. 14a. each; a couple of dozen of lean 
 kine; at ss, are to: be bought at St. Helen’s, to be 
 fattened for service between midsummer and Michael- 
 
290 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 mas. All the rest of the year, nine weary months, ~ 
 the family was on salted provisions, to aid the diges- 
 tion of which, the earl, so chary of his liquor, allows 
 the profuse aid of 166 gallons of mustard. Six hun- 
 dred and forty-seven sheep at Is. 8a. to be eaten 
 salted between Lammas and Michaelmas; 25 hogs 
 at 2s5.. 28 calves at Is. 8¢., 40 lambs at fom cams 
 are other articles which seem to have been re- 
 served rather for the upper table than for the ser- 
 vants, whose chief fare was salted beef, without 
 vegetables, but with mustard @ adscretion! ‘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 Gas- 
 cony wine, at £4 13s. 4d. 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 offices), 
 and eighty chaldrons of coals, at 4s. 10a, with sixty- 
 four loads of wood, at 1s. a load, are the provisions 
 made for lighting and firing. It must have been 
 cold work to live in the noble earl’s house in York- 
 shire, from Lady Day till the warm summer came; 
 which advent is sometimes put off till next year. 
 The family rose at six, or before; for mass was espe-. 
 cially ordered at that hour, in order to force the 
 household to rise early. The dinner-hour was ten 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES 291 
 
 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 a chine of mut- 
 ton, 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 2d. each, were only 
 on the lord’s table, and plovers, at a penny (at Christ- 
 mas), were deemed too good for any digestion that 
 was not carried on ina “noble”’ stomach. Game gen- 
 erally is specified, but without intimation as to limit 
 of the board. No doubt the fragments were not re- 
 jected at the servants’ table; but much certainly 
 went in doles at the gate. My lord maintained be- 
 tween twenty and thirty horses for hisown use. His 
 mounted servants found their own; but their keep 
 was at the noble master’s cost. Of mounted ser- 
 vants, 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 illus- 
 trious Percy carried with him bed and_ bedding, 
 household furniture, pots, pans, and kitchen utensils 
 generally. The baggage-wagon bore these impedi- 
 menta; and before and behind them went chiefs and 
 serving men, including in the array eleven priests, — 
 223 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 men- 
 tioned ; and with these rough elements did the earl 
 
292 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 construct his imperfect social system, so far taking 
 care for his soul as well as his body, inasmuch as that 
 he contributed a groat a year to the shrine of our 
 Lady of Walsingham, 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 out- 
 line of a nobleman’s household in the good old days 
 
 of Henry VII. 
 
 In the reign of the same king, fish was a scarce 
 article, and for a singular reason; namely, people 
 destroyed them at an unlawful season, for the pur- 
 pose of feeding their pigs or manuring the ground. 
 The favourite wine at table was Malmsey: it came 
 from Candy; and there was a legal restriction against 
 its costing more than £4 per butt. In this reign 
 our cooks wrought at fires made with wood im- 
 ported from Gascony and Languedoc, 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 “ Cury ” there is an account of the rolls 
 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 45 5s. 
 
 The dining-rooms —and, indeed, these were the 
 common living-rooms in the greatest houses — were 
 still uncomfortable places. The walls were of stone, 
 partially concealed by tapestry hung upon timber 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES 293 
 
 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 disappear. 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 till the 
 reign of Charles I. that houses were built with under- 
 ground rooms; the pantry, cellars, kitchens, and 
 storerooms 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 supplied to every applicant. 
 To revert to tapestry : we see the time of its change, 
 in the speech of Falstaff, who wishes his hostess to 
 sell her tapestry, and adopt the cheaper painted 
 canvas which came from Holland. 
 
 At this time, and, indeed, long after, our English 
 yeomanry and tradesmen were more anxious to in- 
 vigorate their bodies by a generous diet, than to 
 dwell in well-furnished houses, or to find comfort in 
 cleanliness and elegance. “These English,” said 
 the Spaniards who came over with Philip IL, ‘have 
 their houses made of sticks and dirt; but 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 bedroom of Henry VIII. was of the very sim- 
 
294 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 plest ; and the magnificent Wolsey was content with 
 deal for the material of most of the furniture of his 
 palace. But the community generally was, from this 
 period, both boarded and bedded more comfortably 
 and refinedly than before. The hours for meals 
 were eight, noon, and six; but ‘“after-meats,” and 
 “after-suppers,” filled up the intervals. It was 
 chiefly at the ‘“after-supper” that wine was used. 
 The dinner, however, had become the principal 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 mar- 
 shalled order of precedence; 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 men who 
 were not parish authorities were being hanged for 
 stealing to the amount of a few shillings. 
 
 By the reign of Elizabeth, napkins had been added 
 to tablecloths. 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 differ- 
 ent sorts, and thirty-six various kinds were imported 
 from other parts of Europe. About thirty thousand 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES 295 
 
 tuns were imported yearly, exclusive of what the 
 nobility imported free of duty. The compound 
 wines were in great request; and ladies did not, dis- 
 dain to put their lips to distilled liquors, such as 
 rosa-solis and aqua-vite. 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 the Netherlands, previous to which we 
 had been held, “of all 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 assertion. The statutes passed to correct 
 the evil were disregarded. 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 indoor life. We 
 have an “exterior’’ one, in the fact that the Vicar of 
 Hurly, who served Maidenhead, had an addition of 
 stipend on account 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 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 Malmsey 
 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 
 
296 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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 born, 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 until each man finished 
 his posset, or carried it with him to bed, —such was 
 the ordinary course: but it admitted of exceptions 
 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 
 aeODruton 
 
 Of the table traits of this century, the best ex- 
 amples are to be found in Pepys and Evelyn. In 
 the diary of the former, may be seen what a jolly 
 tavern life 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 civilised a gentleman, while 
 the represerttative of the Tsar of Muscovy comported — 
 himself like a rude clown; and we dine with him at 
 Lady Sunderland’s, where the noble hostess had 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES 297 
 
 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, by making the stones 
 rattle in his stomach. But, zouws avons changé 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 hall, but the 
 mayor's and the lords’ of the Privy Council, that had 
 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 all 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 4700 or 4800 at 
 most.” Pepys took his spoon and fork with him, as 
 was the custom of those days with guests invited to 
 great entertainments. “Forks” came in with Tom 
 Coryat, in the reign of James I.; but they were not 
 “familiar ” till after the Restoration. The “laying of 
 napkins,” as it was called, was a profession of itself. 
 Pepys mentions, the day 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 
 
298 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 trade; and he gets much money by it.” The age of 
 Pepys, we may further notice, was the great “sup- 
 ping age.” Pepys himself supped heartily on venison 
 pasty ; but his occasional “ next-morning ” remark was 
 like that of Scrub: “My head aches consumedly !” 
 The dashing Duchess of Cleveland supped off such 
 substantials as roast chine of beef; much more 
 solid fare than that of the squires in a succeed- 
 ing 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. 
 “Your 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 anything 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 Moorfields; but they were so well pro- 
 visioned 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 impertinence in this; 
 but there was less meanness in it than was shown by 
 the great ladies of Queen Anne’s reign, who were 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES 299 
 
 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 illustri- 
 ous family, and then endeavour to fix their young 
 darling, where he may be both well educated and 
 supported.” 
 
 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 en- 
 tirely set aside. Ragouts and fricassées are the reign- 
 ing dishes, in which everything is so dismembered, 
 and thrown out of all order and form, that no part of 
 the mess can properly be divided or distinguished 
 from another.” But we have come to a period 
 that demands a chapter to itself; and even with that 
 implied space, we can hardly do justice to the table 
 traits of the last century. 
 
Table Traits of the Last Century 
 
 Wuen Mr. Chute intimated to Horace Walpole 
 that his “temperance diet and milk” had rendered 
 him stupid, Walpole protested pleasantly against such 
 an idea. ‘I have such lamentable proofs,” he says, 
 “every day, of the stupefying qualities of beef, ale, 
 and wine, that I have contracted a most religious 
 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 alderman, 
 at the end of the table, was to stick his fork into his 
 jolly neighbour’s cheek, and cut a brave slice of 
 brown and fat. Why, I’ll swear I see no difference 
 between a country gentleman and a sirloin; whenever 
 the first 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 in- 
 quisitive 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 
 300 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 301 
 
 and in principles, we have improved upon the fashion 
 of one hundred and ten years ago; and, perhaps, 
 the improvement in principles is a consequence of 
 that in 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, occa- 
 sionally, 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, 
 in a fit of vexation and indigestion, went home from 
 the coffee-house and cut his throat! “It was strange, 
 yet very English,” says Walpole. Old Nourse must 
 have had Japanese blood in him. At Jeddo, whena 
 nobleman feels himself slighted, he walks home, takes 
 the sharpest knife he can find, and rips himself open, 
 from the wmdbzlicus 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 
 Kilmarnock, from merely seeing him at his trial. 
 She forthwith cast off her old lover, Sir Harry Nis- 
 bett, 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 English!”’ She was not 
 so afflicted, but that she could bear the company of 
 gay George Selwyn to dine with her ; and he, believ- 
 ing that her passion was feigned, joked with her, on 
 what was always a favourite topic with himself, — 
 the approaching execution. Lady Townshend forth- 
 with rushed from the table in rage and tears, and 
 
302 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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, 
 “T can lie in the Tower the night before!” This is 
 a pretty dining-room interior of the last century. As 
 for George Selwyn, that most celebrated of the 
 diners-out of a hundred years ago, he said the pleas- 
 antest thing possible at dessert, after the execution 
 of Lord Lovat. Some ladies asked him how he 
 could be such a barbarian as to see the head cut off, 
 « Nay,” 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 @ la féte tranchée; he came to town 
 t’other day to have a tooth drawn, and told the man 
 that he would drop his handkerchief for the signal.” 
 Selwyn kept his powers bright by keeping good 
 company; while Gray the poet was but indifferent 
 society, from living reclusely, added to a natural 
 _ turn for melancholy, and ‘a little too much dignity.” 
 Young, a greater poet than Gray, was as brilliant in 
 conversation as Selwyn himself, as long as, like Sel- 
 wyn, he polished his wit by contact with the world. 
 When he dined with Garrick, Quin, and George Anne 
 Bellamy, he was the sprightliest of the four; but 
 when he took to realising the solitude he had epically 
 praised, Young, too, became a proser. Quin loved 
 good living as much as he did sparkling conversa- 
 tion; and Garrick, the other guest 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: 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 303 
 
 “ A plague on Egypt’s art! I say; 
 Embalm the dead, on senseless clay 
 Rich wines and spices waste! 
 Like sturgeon, or like brawn, shall I, 
 Bound in a precious pickle, lie, 
 Which I shall never taste? 
 
 “Let me embalm 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.” 
 
 A good many female mummies were prepared 
 during the last century after a similar receipt. Wit- 
 ness Walpole’s neighbour at Strawberry Hill, ‘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 Cumber- 
 land) had brought some of his defeats from Flan- 
 ders.” 
 
 Young denounces in his “Satires,” both tea and 
 wine, as abused by the fair sex of the last century. 
 In Memmia he paints Lady Betty Germain, in the 
 lines 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! how I tremble at thy fatal stream! 
 As Lethe, dreadful to the love of fame. 
 
304 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 What devastations on thy banks are seen! 
 
 What shades of mighty names which once have been! 
 A hecatomb of characters supplies 
 
 Thy painted altar’s daily sacrifice. 
 
 Hervey, Pearce, Blount, aspersed by 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, like Wal- 
 pole’s “attorney’s wife,’ were much given to the 
 bottle, the poet exclaims: 
 
 “But this inhuman 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? 
 The ladies long at men of drink exclaim’d, 
 And what impair’d both 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 satirised 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 aristocracy practised it. The Dau- 
 phine of Burgundy is indeed praised by her biogra- 
 phers as not drinking to any great excess during the 
 three last years of her life. But this was exceptional. 
 The Duchess of Bourbon and her daughters drank 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Scaidaite s the sweetener of a pees feast.” et 
 
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TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 305 
 
 like dragoons; but the latter were unruly in their 
 cups, whereas the old lady carried her liquor dis- 
 creetly. Henrietta, Madame de Montespan, and the 
 Princess di Monaco, were all addicted, more or less, 
 to tippling. The Duchess de Bourbon and her Grace 
 of Chartres added smoking to their other boon qual- 
 ities; and the Dauphin once surprised them with 
 pipes which had been cudlotés for them by common 
 soldiers of the Swiss Guard! -In France, devotion 
 even was made a means toward drunkenness. Bun- 
 gener tells us, in his “Trois Sermons sous Louis 
 XV.,” that M. Basquiat de la House owned a small 
 estate in Gascony, which produced a wine which no 
 one would buy.. Being at Rome, 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. A /éfe 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, 
 at which time, says Walpole, ‘“‘he 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 cen- 
 tury ; and the letter-writer I have just cited affords 
 us 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 breed- 
 ing, said, ‘Indeed, sir, if you don’t wipe your nose, 
 you will lose that drop.’” 
 
306 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 A. hundred years ago, Walpole remarked that 
 Methodism, drinking, and gambling were all on the 
 increase. Of the first he sneeringly says, “It in- 
 creases 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 Newmarket meeting, in the 
 rapidity of both gaming and drinking, a bank-bill was 
 thrown down, and, nobody immediately claiming it, 
 they agreed to give it to a man who was standing 
 bye 
 
 There was a love of good eating, as well as of deep 
 drinking, even among the upper classes of the last 
 century. 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 pepper and salt: it is the best 
 thing you ever tasted! I could not help coming to 
 tell you this;” and then she drove back to town. 
 And what a picture of a magistrate is that of Field- 
 ing, 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 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 morn- 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 307 
 
 ing, 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 
 granddaughters 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 
 primates handled the rackets then, as Pope and cardi- 
 nals do now the cue. Pio Nono and the expertest 
 of the Sacred College play /a poule at billiards, after 
 dinner, with the view of keeping down the good pon- 
 tiff'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 Roman 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 com- 
 mit murder, was something like that which influenced 
 the poor woman who, suddenly becoming pious, after 
 hearing a sermon from Rowland Hill, went to a book- 
 stall, and stole a Bible. 
 I have noticed the love of good eating, and the 
 coarseness connected with it. There was also a 
 coarse economy attendant on it. The Duchess of 
 Devonshire would call out to the duke, when both 
 were presiding at supper after one of their assemblies, 
 
308 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 “ Good God, duke! don’t cut the ham ; nobody will eat 
 any;’’ and then she would relate the circumstances 
 of her private ménage 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 posses- 
 sion. Lord Coventry chased his lady round the 
 dinner-table, and scrubbed the paint off her cheeks 
 with a napkin. The Duke and Duchess of Hamil- 
 ton 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 earl. 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, peo- 
 ple are not “nice”? even now. Dukes very recently 
 dined with a railway potentate, in hopes of profiting 
 by the condescension ; and duchesses heard, without 
 a smile, that potentate’s lady superbly dismiss them 
 with an “Az 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 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 309 
 
 Ranger’s in the comedy, vastly battered, and not 
 very fit to be seen. 
 
 Pope, in the last century, moralised, with effect, on 
 the deaths of the dissolute Buckingham and the avari- 
 cious Cutler; and the avarice of Sir John was per- 
 haps more detestable than any extravagance that is 
 satirised by Pope, or witticised by Walpole. But 
 Sir John Cutler was ingenious in his thrift. This 
 rich miser ordinarily travelled on horseback and 
 alone, in order to avoid expense. On reaching his 
 inn at night, he feigned indisposition, as an excuse 
 for not taking supper. 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 bedside, he kindled a 
 little 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 assem- 
 blies and suppers. At the latter there was at least 
 wit, and as much of it as was ever to be found at 
 Madame du Deffand’s, where, by the way, the peo- 
 ple 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 pre- 
 paring to invade England. “My Lady Rochford, 
 looking down on‘ her fan, said, with great softness, 
 ‘T don’t know; I don’t think the French are a sort 
 
310 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 of people that women need be afraid of.’”” This was 
 more commendable wit than that of Madame du 
 Deffand herself, who, as I have previously remarked, 
 made a whole assembly laugh, at Madame de Mar- 
 chais’s, 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.” 
 
 Our vain lady wits, however, too often lacked 
 refinement. “If I drink any more,” said Lady 
 Coventry at Lord Hertford’s table, “if I drink 
 any more, I shall be ‘muckibus.’” “Lord!” said 
 Lady Mary Coke, “what is that?” “Oh,” was the 
 reply, “it is Irish for sentimental!” In those days 
 there were no wedding-breakfasts: the nuptial ban- 
 quet was a dinner, and bride and bridegroom saw it 
 out. Walpole congratulates himself that, at the mar- 
 riage of his niece Maria, “there was neither form nor 
 indecency, both which generally meet on such oc- 
 casions. They were married,’ he adds, “at my 
 brother’s in Pall Mall, just before dinner, by Mr. 
 Keppel; the company, my brother, his son, Mrs. 
 Keppel and Charlotte, Lady Elizabeth Keppel, Lady 
 Betty Waldegrave, and I. We dined there; the 
 earl and new countess got into their post-chaise 
 at eight o’clock, and went to Navestock alone, where 
 they stay till Saturday night.” Walpole gives in- 
 stances enough—and more than enough — where 
 matters did not go off so becomingly. Lords and 
 ladies were terribly coarse in sentiment and expres- 
 sion; and the women were often worse than the men. 
 ‘Miss Pett,” says the writer whom I have so often 
 quoted, “has dismissed Lord Buckingham: fan? 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 311 
 
 mieux pour luz! She damns her eyes that she will 
 marry some captain: tant mieux pour elle.” This is 
 a sample of table traits in 1760; and it was long be- 
 fore manners and morals improved. The example 
 was not of the best sort 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 at night till noon 
 the next day, he lost two thousand pounds, which, 
 suspecting knavery, he refused to pay. His an- 
 tagonist, 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 indignities 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 horsewhip be- 
 neath her hoop. The gentlemen do not appear to 
 have been so generous, in their character of lovers, 
 as their French brethren, who ruined themselves for 
 “Jes beaux yeux’ of some temporary idol. Miss , 
 Ford laughed consumedly at Lord Jersey, for send- 
 ing her (“an odd first and only present to a be- 
 loved mistress’’) a boar’s head, which, she says, “I 
 had often the honour to meet at your lordship’s 
 
312 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 table before . . . and would have eat it, had it been 
 eatable.”’ 
 
 The public 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 organisation which 
 influenced his ancestor. “I was to dine at Northum- 
 berland House,” says Walpole, in 1765, “and went 
 there a little after hour. There I found the countess, 
 Lady Betty Mackinsy, Lady Strafford, my Lady Fin- 
 later, — 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 com- 
 menced to read the Poor Bill, which would take, at 
 least, two hours, and, perhaps, would debate it after- 
 ward. We concluded dinner would be called for; it 
 not being very precedented for ladies to wait for 
 gentlemen. No such thing! Six 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 struck 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 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 313 
 
 red, green, and yellow, — gilt plate, blacks, and uni- 
 forms. My Lady Finlater, who never saw those em- 
 broidered 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! Stay 
 —TI 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 Ireland with his regiment, — the 
 Fifth Infantry ; and who, after much consideration, 
 consented to give a dinner to the officers in garrison 
 at Limerick. The gallant, but 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. When the ban- 
 quet was served, there was but one astonished and 
 uncomfortable individual at the board; and that was 
 
314 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 the earl himself, who beheld a feast for the gods, and 
 ‘heard himself gratefully complimented upon the ex- 
 cellence both of viands and wines. The astonished earl 
 experienced 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 un- 
 adorned and unwelcome truth ; and the inexperienced 
 young earl, acknowledging his mistake, discharged the 
 bill with a sigh on himself, and a cheque on his banker. 
 
 A host, after all, may appear parsimonious without 
 intending to be so. ‘This wine,” said one of this 
 sort to the late Mr. Pocock of Bristol, who had been 
 dining with him, “costs me six shillings a bottle!” - 
 “Does it?” asked the guest, with a quaint look of 
 gay reproof, “then pass it round, and let me have 
 another sixpenn’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 Garter, at Windsor 
 Castle, followed by a grand dinner, and a ball. It 
 would seem as if the public claimed the right of 
 seeing the spectacle for 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, on which some 
 were cut and wounded, and the guards fired several 
 times on them, with powder, to deter them, but with* 
 out effect, till they had orders to load with ball, which 
 made them desist.” This is an ill-worded paragraph 
 from the papers of the day; but it is a graphic illus- 
 tration of the manners of the period. j 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 315 
 
 These few samples of what society was in the last 
 century, would suffice alone to show that it was sadly 
 out of joint. What caused it? Any one who will 
 take the trouble to go carefully through the columns 
 of the ill-printed newspapers of the early part of the 
 last century, will find that drunkenness, dissolute- 
 ness, 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 Hall dined together 
 before they made their attempt to carry off Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle ; and when defeated in their Tarquinlike 
 endeavour, they slaughtered poor Will Montford, the 
 player, in the public streets, for no better reason 
 than that Montford admired the lady, and Hall 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 Postboy remarks, “seized with fear 
 and trembling.’ “The dog Mohun,” as Swift 
 styled him, was slain, and so was the duke; but it is 
 uncertain whether the latter fell by the hand of his 
 adversary, 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 
 Fielding, running him through, rushing in triumph to 
 another house, meeting another antagonist, and get- 
 ting slain by him, without any one caring to interfere. 
 
316 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 In one of the numbers of the Dazly Post for 1726, 
 I find it recorded that a bevy of gallants, having joy- 
 ously dined or supped together, descended from a 
 hackney-coach in Piccadilly, bilked the coachman, 
 beat him to a mummy, and stabbed his horses. 
 Flushed with victory, they rushed into a neighbour- 
 ing public house, drew upon the gallants, terrified 
 the ladies, and laughed at the mistress of the estab- 
 lishment, 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, Cheapside, 
 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 imnocent 
 association, found their simple amusement in mutila- 
 ting 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 
 palpitate 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 ; 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 317 
 
 and, after service, they sat down to dinner, the prin- 
 cipal dish at which was a “Holy Ghost pie!” As- 
 suredly the sermon of the metropolitan 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 Rich- 
 mond, with the last mistress of Louis XV.; and 
 nobody appears to have been scandalised. 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 eulogium passed by a Mayfair 
 preacher in his funeral sermon upon Frederick, 
 Prince of Wales: “He had no great parts, but he 
 had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into 
 vices ; he was very generous; but I hear his gener- 
 osity has ruined a great many people; and then his 
 condescension was such, that he kept very bad com- 
 pany.” 
 
 I have, elsewhere, spoken of some of the roistering 
 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 entertainment 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 
 
318 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 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. 
 
 The above was, no doubt, a demonstration on the 
 part of gentlemen of republican principles. Some 
 few years later, a different instance occurs. The 
 Monthly Review, May, 1757, mentions that “seven - 
 gentlemen dined at a house of public entertainment 
 in London, and were supposed 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 afterward played a 
 game of cards, to decide which of them should pay 
 the bill. It amounted to A481 IIs. 6d.; besides a 
 turtle, which was a present to the company.” This 
 was certainly a heavy bill, A party of the same 
 number at the Clarendon, and with turtle charged in 
 the bill, would, in our days, find exceeding difficulty 
 in spending more than 45 each. Their grandsires 
 expended more than twice as much for a dinner not 
 half as good. 
 
 It is only with the present century that old cus- 
 toms 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 century ; when the more solid and stable dynasty 
 of plum pudding was finally established. Brand re- 
 lates, that on Christmas Day, 1801, he dined at the 
 chaplain’s table, at St. James’s, “and partook of the 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 319 
 
 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 anywhere else retained.” The great innovation, 
 after this, was in the days of the regent, when oysters 
 were served as a prelude to dinner. This fashion 
 was adopted by the prince on the recommendation 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 fash- 
 ion, however, like others, has passed away; and 
 
 oysters and drams, as overtures to dinner, are things 
 - that have fallen into the domain of history. 
 
 There is a custom of these later days, much ob- 
 served at Christmas time, which deserves a word of 
 notice. I allude to the ‘“‘ Christmas-tree.”’ The cus- 
 tom is one, however novel in England, of very ancient 
 observance elsewhere. Its birthplace is Egypt. The 
 tree there used was the palm; and the ceremony was 
 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 JZzscellany. In the time of 
 the winter solstice, when parties were given in an- 
 cient Misraim, a spray of this tree, with twelve shoots, 
 was suspended, to symbolise the completion of an- 
 other year. The custom passed into Italy, where 
 the fir-tree was employed for the purposes of cele- 
 bration ; 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 continuance, Davus was as good a man as 
 
320 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 Chremes. The Sigillaria, days for interchanging 
 presents of figures in wax, like those on the Christ- 
 mas-tree, followed; and, finally, the Juvenalia, when 
 men became “boys with boys,’ matrons turned chil- 
 dren once again, and young and old indulged in the 
 solemn romps with which the festival closed, and 
 which used 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 Juel Fesi was the midwinter 
 “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 roasted the great boar, —an an- 
 imal 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 con- 
 cealed 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 Roman tree, in honour of Apollo, the 
 Germans place a figure of the Son of God; and, for 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 321 
 
 the Phoebus and his flocks at the foot, they substi- 
 tute “the Good Shepherd.” The waxen figures are 
 also the szgz//aria, but with more holy impress. The 
 Saturnalia have a place in the table joys that attend 
 the exhibition of the tree, in presence of which joy is 
 supposed 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 
 opening of Parliament, and at which the royal speech 
 is read, before it is declared in the presence of collect- 
 ive 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, touching every question of impor- 
 tance: once, by night, and over the bowl; and once, 
 by day, when they were perfectly 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 Viscount Sid- 
 mouth’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 un- 
 fortunate official who so offended, should have craft- 
 ily 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, in another page, of the unlucky 
 exclamation touching haddock, which caused the per- 
 petual exile of Poodle Byng from Belvoir. There 
 was, however, no offence meant. How different was 
 
322 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 the case with that impudent coxcomb, Brummell, 
 who managed to be the copper-captain of fashion in 
 London, when the true captains were fighting their 
 country’s battles! When Brummell was living al- 
 most 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 impertinent 
 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, delicately seiz- 
 ing the end of it with a napkin-covered finger and 
 thumb, he passed it under the table to his dog, with 
 the remark, “ Here, Atout! try if you can get your 
 teeth through this; for I’ll be d—d if I can.” Not 
 less ungratefully impudent was this gentleman-beg- 
 gar on another occasion. A French family had given 
 a dinner entirely on his account. It was perfect in 
 its way. The ortolans came from Toulouse, the 
 salmon was from the waters in the neighbourhood of 
 Rouen, and the company most select. A friend, en- 
 countering him next day, asked how the dinner had 
 gone off. Brummell lifted up his hands, shook his 
 head in a deprecatory manner, and said, “ Don’t ask 
 me, my good fellow; but, poor man! he did his 
 best.” 
 
 The two most recent examples of table traits of 
 the present century, that I have met with, illustrate 
 the two extremes of society ; and as they refer to 
 a period of not above a month ago, they will serve, 
 not inaptly, to close this section of my series. The 
 first example is that afforded by a dinner given at 
 Boston, in Lincolnshire, to twenty aged labourers. 
 
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY 323 
 
 At this dinner, one of the gentlemen donors of the 
 feast gave “The Ladies,” and called on the oc- 
 togenarian chairman to return thanks. The old 
 president, however, shook his head, with a mixed 
 melancholy and cunning air, as if he too well knew 
 there was nothing to return thanks for. The vener- 
 able “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 he 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, how- 
 ever, 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 recon- 
 ciliation 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 :” Doctor 
 Wilberforce, highest of churchmen, briefest of preach- 
 ers, and twice as much curled as the son of Clinias 
 
324 TABLE TRAITS 
 
 himself ; while Mr. Bright, with every hair as if a 
 plummet depended at the end of it, hating the 
 Church, but not indifferent to petits patés a la braise, 
 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, — Doctor Cumming and Doc- 
 tor 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 bayo- 
 nets. But Doctor Cahill, it may be hoped, is some- 
 thing insane, or would he have deliberately recorded, 
 as he did the other day in the Zad/et, that it were 
 much better for Romanists to read immoral works 
 than the English Bible? His excellent reason is, 
 that “the Church” easily forgives immorality, but 
 has no mercy for heresy. Well, well; we 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. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I, 
 
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