I have also to announce the death of another
gentleman, of the old school also, but somewhat
of a different type from the first. This was the
man of cultivated leisure, the scholar, the classic.
He had travelled in early life a good deal, had
studied the works of the masters in the Italian
galleries, had brought back copies of them to
England, and with them had enriched a
collection of spurious old pictures, which he had
inherited, and in which he devoutly believed.
His villa at Twickenham was in the classic style,
and old marble tombs with Latin inscriptions
on them, imported from Rome at an immense
expense, were let into the walls of his Italian
garden. The tombs of his dogs were about the
grounds, and these, too, had Latin inscriptions
upon them. "In memoriam Lindæ, mortuæ,
Eheu!" &c. He liked to surround his table
with professors of the arts and letters, but
of the steady-going class, none of your wild
geniuses with their new-fangled notions who
would smile incredulously at his Guido, or who
cared nothing for his old copy of Vitruvius.
Worthy and orthodox believers in the past
were the men for him; professors who knew the
difference between an edition from Leyden and
one from Amsterdam, ancient academicians who
could go through the whole of his collection of
drawings without a yawn.

Both these gentlemen, though with many
points of difference between them, had certain
things in common. They both abhorred beards.
They were both conservatives and enemies to
much progress. They were both intensely
courteous to ladies, and believed in their hearts
that all members of the " fair sex" were beautiful.
They both pronounced the u in " put" as
we pronounce it in " but," and said they were
much " oblieged" when any service was rendered
them. They both had unnumbered prejudices,
and a multitude of fine and noble qualities.
They are both dead.

With them has gone the meal at which they
used to preside. The old-fashioned dinner is
dead. It held out stoutly for a long time in
consequence of the substantial nature of its
resources, and the strength of its constitution,
but it gave in at last, and the flowers of the
new dinner decorate its tomb.

The old-fashioned dinner holds its place in
one's regard, and many are the ancient associations
which endear it to one's memory. The
soup, the fish, the four corner-dishes, the haunch
of mutton, and the pair of boiled fowls, how
regularly these used to appear to you, how candidly
they revealed themselves before you! The new
dinner is more elegant, no doubt, but it is less
cordial. The dishes steal round behind you in
a furtive manner, and insinuate themselves over
your left shoulder as if eating were a thing to be
ashamed of, and as if the proper diet for the
refined beings of this age were flowers, and fruit,
and lemon biscuits, and chips. The new dinner
is more convenient, better suited to our hours,
more graceful; it is a banquet, a light luxurious
supper—let it prosper, but still let us say a kind
word at parting to the old-fashioned dinner—
which died, by-the-by, quite suddenly at last of
apoplexy.

If the career of the deceased meal was a
failure, if it have been wisely superseded, as I
think it has, it yet must not be condemned
too severely, for its faults were lovable. It
is true that flowers and fruit are more
beautiful than stewed pigeons and cauliflowers
with white sauce. It is true that the joint
and the fowls were getting cold at the top
and bottom of the table while those same
pigeons were making their rounds; true that
the carving was often a severe tax on the
guests, and a hindrance to conversation; true
that the putting the dessert on table over the
heads of the company was a great nuisance;
true that there were plenty of defects
connected with the whole thing; still it must be
admitted that there was something intensely
jolly and hearty about that old banquet. "Let
me give you some of this mutton, my dear
Jawbones;" there was something appetising
about such an address from a jovial old
boy at the bottom of the table. The silently
offered food of the new system is much less
inviting.

What pressing used to go on, too, over the
viands of old. If this was a bore, which very
often it was, it still was an error on the side of
that cordiality which I claim as belonging to
the old-fashioned dinner. " I say, Cockle, you're
never passing that curry; my dear boy, you
must and shall have some. James, take that
curry back to Mr. Cockle. I never heard of
such a thing."—"Mrs. Fingerglass, you are
taking positively nothing whatever, now do let
me give you this merrythought." Of course, if
you had had enough, if you were not hungry,
or if you were cross, all this pressing was a
bore, but still it sprang from an excess of
hospitality. At all events, we can afford to speak
mercifully of the practice now, for it is dead.
We are urged on to indigestion now, only by
our own appetites, and the host of the evening
is no party, except passively, to our nights of
torture.

Yes, there was an immense heartiness of feeling
about the old festival. The master of the
table used to take you in hand, and watch over
you, and out of this would spring many a
warm-hearted word, and no doubt feelings of
hospitality would be generated by acts of hospitality.
I fancy that a jolly old fellow at the end of the
table saying, with a twinkling eye, " Let's have
a glass of wine together, Jawbones; glad to see
you, old boy," felt for the said Jawbones a sentiment
of regard which would have been wanting
if that ceremonial had not taken place between
the two.

As a Small-Beer Chronicler I am naturally
affected by small things, and I mourn over the
death of that old old custom of " taking wine."
I do not want to vex the ghost of that same
practice; it cannot be galvanised into life again.
Indeed, it was no doubt a remnant of the dark
ages, and led the master of the feast on to imbibe
so much sherry that he must have burnt like a