'A silver service loads the board,
Of eatables a slender hoard;'
and the sarcasm reminds one of the address with which Theodore Hook once
bore himself under somewhat similar circumstances. Invited to dine with
an old lady, he was horrified when the servant, lifting the cover,
displayed a couple of chops. 'Mr. Hook,' said the hostess, 'you see your
dinner.' 'Thank you, ma'am,' observed Hook; 'but where's yours?'
The niggardliness which displays itself in smaller subscriptions to
public or private objects than the donor's means will justify has
naturally met with keen reproach. Herrick has a quatrain directed
against the failing; and everyone remembers the lines about the man who
declared that at the sound of woe his hand was always open:
'Your hand is open, to be sure,
But there is nothing in it.'
Perhaps the happiest satire on meanness of this sort is contained in the
anonymous couplet 'On Close-fist's Subscription':
'The charity of Close-fist, give to fame:
He has at last subscribed--how much?--his name.'