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?” “O,” was the reply, “it is Irish for _sentimental_!” In
those days there were no wedding breakfasts: the nuptial banquet was
a dinner, and bride and bridegroom saw it out. Walpole congratulates
himself that, at the marriage of his niece Maria, “there was neither
form nor indecency, both which generally meet on such occasions. 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 instances enough--and more than
enough--where matters did not go off so becomingly. Lords and Ladies
were terribly coarse in sentiment and expression; and the women were
often worse than the men. “Miss Pett,” says the writer whom I have so
often quoted, “has dismissed Lord Buckingham: _tant mieux pour lui_!
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
before 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 antagonist,
Mrs. Mackenzie, subsequently pounced upon him in the garden of an
inn at Hampstead, where he was about to give a dinner to some other
ladies. The sturdy “Scotchwoman,” as Gray calls her, demanded her
money, and, on meeting with a refusal, she “horsewhipped, trampled,
bruised,” and served him with worse 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 horse-whip
beneath her hoop. The gentlemen do not appear to have been so generous,
in their character of lovers, as their French brethren, who ruined
themselves for “_les beaux yeux_” of some temporary idol. Miss Ford
laughed consumedly at Lord Jersey, for sending her (“an odd first and
only present to a beloved mistress”) a boar’s head, which, she says, “I
had often the honour to meet at your Lordship’s table before ... and
would have eat it, had it been eatable.”
The 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 organization which influenced his ancestor.
“I was to dine at Northumberland House,” says Walpole, in 1765, “and
went there a little after hour. There I found the Countess, Lady Betty
Mackinsy, Lady Strafford, my Lady Finlater,--who was never out of
Scotland before,--a tall lad of fifteen, her son, Lord Drogheda, and
Mr. Worseley. At five” (which is conjectured to have been the hour of
extreme fashion a century ago) “arrived Mr. Mitchell, who said the
Lords had commenced to read the Poor Bill, which would take, at least,
two hours, and, perhaps, would debate it afterwards. 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 red, green, and
yellow,--gilt plate, blacks, and uniforms. My Lady Finlater, who never
saw those embroidered 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--I have not done! Just as this second first
course had done its duty, Lord Northumberland, Lord Strafford, and
Mackinsy came in; and the whole began a third time. Then the second
course, and the dessert! I thought we should have dropped from our
chairs with fatigue and fumes. When the clock struck eleven, we were
asked to return to the drawing-room, and take tea and coffee; but I
said I was engaged to supper, and came home to bed!” This dinner may
be contrasted with another given, at a later period, by a member of
the same house. The Nobleman in question was an Earl Percy, who was
in 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 banquet was served, there was but one
astonished and uncomfortable individual at the board; and that was
the Earl himself, who beheld a feast for the gods, and heard himself
gratefully complimented upon the excellence both of viands and wines.
The astonished Earl 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 unadorned 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 six-penn’orth!”
But, to return to our Table Traits of the Last Century. 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
without 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 illustration of the manners of the period.
These few samples of what society was in the last century, would
suffice alone to show that it was sadly out of 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, dissoluteness, and the sword hanging on
every fool’s thigh, ready to do his bidding, were the characteristics
of the period. People got drunk at dinners, and then slew one another,
or in some other way broke the law. Lord Mohun and Captain Hall dined
together before they made their attempt to carry off Mrs. Bracegirdle;
and when defeated in their Tarquin-like 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 “Post-boy” remarks, “seized with fear and trembling.” “The dog
Mohun,” as Swift styled him, was slain, and so was the Duke; but it is
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 getting slain by him, without any one caring to
interfere.
In one of the numbers of the “Daily Post” for 1726, I find it recorded
that a bevy of gallants, having joyously dined or supped together,
descended from a hackney-coach in Piccadilly, bilked the coachman,
beat him to a mummy, and stabbed his horses. Flushed with victory,
they rushed into a neighbouring public-house, drew upon the gallants,
terrified the ladies, and laughed at the mistress of the establishment,
who declared that they would bring down ruin upon a place noted for
“its safety and secrecy.” The succeeding paragraph in the paper
announces to the public that the Bishop of London will preach on the
following Sunday in Bow-church, 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 innocent association, found
their simple amusement in mutilating watchmen and citizens. The “Bold
Bucks” took for their devilish device, “Blind and Bold Love,” and,
under it, committed atrocities, the very thought of which makes the
heart of human nature 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; and, after service, they sat
down to dinner, the principal dish at which was a “Holy-Ghost pie!”
Assuredly 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 Richmond, with the last
mistress of Louis XV.; and nobody appears to have been scandalized. And
this was the characteristic of the time: vice was not only general,
but it did not very seriously offend the few exceptional individuals.
For the first three quarters of the century the epitaph of that time
might have been taken from the eulogium passed by a May-Fair 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 generosity has ruined a great many
people; and then his condescension was such, that he kept very bad
company.”
I have, elsewhere, spoken of some of the roystering Clubs of the last
century; but I cannot refrain from adding two other instances here,
as examples of the Table Traits of the same period. The Calves’-Head
Club established itself in Suffolk-Street, Charing Cross, on the
anniversary of the martyrdom of King Charles, in the year 1735. The
gentlemen members had an 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 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 windows; 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 afterwards played a game of cards, to
decide which of them should pay the bill. It amounted to £81. 11_s._
6_d._; 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 £5 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 customs disappeared;
and, with regard to some of them, society is all the better for
their disappearance. Even plum-porridge did not survive the first
year of this half century; when the more solid and stable dynasty
of plum-pudding was finally established. Brand relates, that on
Christmas-Day, 1801, he dined at the Chaplain’s table, at St. James’s,
“and partook of the first thing served and eaten on that festival, at
that table, namely, a tureen full of rich, luscious plum-porridge. I
do not know,” he says, “that the custom is 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 fashion, 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 observed at Christmas time,
which deserves a word of notice. I allude to the “Christmas-tree.” The
custom is one, however novel in England, of very ancient observance
elsewhere. Its birth-place is Egypt. The tree there used was the
palm; and the ceremony 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
“Miscellany.” In the time of the winter solstice, when parties were
given in ancient Misraim, a spray of this tree, with twelve shoots,
was suspended, to symbolize the completion of another year. The custom
passed into Italy, where the fir-tree was employed for the purposes
of celebration; and its pyramidal tips were decorated with burning
candles, in honour of Saturn. This festival, the _Saturnalia_, was
observed at the winter solstice, from the 17th to the 21st of December,
and, during its continuance, Davus was as good a man as Chremes. The
_Sigillaria_, days for interchanging presents of figures in wax, like
those on the Christmas-tree, followed; and, finally, the _Juvenalia_,
when men became “boys with boys,” matrons turned children once again,
and young and old indulged in the solemn romps with which the festival
closed, and which _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 mid-winter “Wheel Feast;” and the
wheel represented the circling years which end but to begin again. The
yule-log, as we call it, was the wheel-shaped log; in front of which
was roasted the great boar,--an animal hateful to the god of the sun,
but the flesh of which was religiously eaten by his worshippers. At
this festival presents were made, which were concealed in wrappers, and
flung in at open windows, emblematical, we are told, of the good, but
as yet hidden, things which the opening year had in store.
The Church generally made selection of the heathen festivals for its
own holy-days. In the early days, this was done chiefly to enable
Christians to be merry without danger to themselves. It would not
have been safe for them to eat, drink, and rejoice on days when Pagan
Governments put on mourning. They were glad, then, when these were
glad, and feasted with them, but holding other celebrations in view.
Hence the German tree; only, for the sun which crowned the Roman tree,
in honour of Apollo, the Germans place a figure of the Son of God; and,
for the Phœbus and his flocks at the foot, they substitute “the Good
Shepherd.” The waxen figures are also the _sigillaria_, 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 collective wisdom.
This, at all events, reminds us of the ancient German custom, mentioned
by Tacitus, who tells us, that the Teutonic legislators and warriors
consulted twice touching every question of importance: 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 Sidmouth’s vice, as Lord Holland tells us, “was wine;”
and we have heard even of grave Lord-Stewards so drunk as to pull
down the Monarchs they held by the hand, and _should_ have supported.
The last unfortunate official who so offended, should have craftily
qualified his wine with water; and the mention of that subject reminds
me of the origin of wine and water, of which I will say a few words,
after adding one or two more traits of table manners.
I have spoken, in another page, of the unlucky exclamation touching
haddock, which caused the perpetual exile of Poodle Byng from Belvoir.
There was, however, no offence meant. How different was the case with
that impudent coxcomb, Brummell, who managed to be the copper-Captain
of fashion in London, when the true Captains were fighting their
country’s battles! When Brummell was living almost on the charity of
Mr. Marshall, he was one of a dinner party at that gentleman’s house,
whither he took with him, according to his most 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 seizing the end of it
with a napkin-covered finger and thumb, he passed it under the table
to his dog, with the remark, “Here, _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-beggar 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,
encountering 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. At this dinner, one of the gentlemen donors of the
feast, gave “the Ladies,” and called on the octogenarian Chairman to
return thanks. The old President, however, shook his head, with a
mixed melancholy and cunning air, as if he too well knew there was
nothing to return thanks for. The venerable “Vice” was then appealed
to; but his reply was, that the least said about the subject of the
toast would be the soonest mended. At length, a sprightly old man of
threescore and ten was requested to respond, he having a gay look about
him which seemed warranting gallantry; but 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, however, in his remarks, that
left it uncertain whether he were so much a champion of the fair sex,
as the company had expected to find in him. The second “Trait” of the
customs of this country is presented by the dinner given in February
of the present year, by Earl Granville, the guests at which were Lord
Aberdeen, the Bishop of Oxford, and Mr. Bright. There were not such
startling contrasts at the reconciliation dinner which brought Wilkes
and Johnson together, as at Earl Granville’s unique banquet. The host
and the Premier represented--the first, smiling courtesy; the second,
the most frigid severity of a freezing civility. But the strongest
contrast was in the persons of the Bishop and the “Friend:”--Dr.
Wilberforce, highest of Churchmen, briefest of Preachers, and twice as
much curled as the son of Clinias 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 pâtés à 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,--Dr. Cumming and Dr. Cahill, with appropriate dishes
before each:--a plate of sweetbreads in front of the gentle apostle
of the Kirk; and a bowl of blood-puddings opposite the surpliced
Priest who has gained a gloomy notoriety by the “glorious idea,” to
which I have referred, of a massacre of English heretic beef-eaters,
by the light-dieted holders of Catholic and continental bayonets. But
Dr. Cahill, it may be hoped, is something insane, or would he have
deliberately recorded, as he did the other day in the “Tablet,” that it
were much better for 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 Holywell-street literature was better
reading than the English version of the Sermon on the Mount.--But let
us sweeten our imagination with a little Wine and Water.
WINE AND WATER.