Part 10
So sings, or says, Robert Browning in his ditty of the Pied Piper, and it is to be remarked that he was not driven to invent the word "nuncheon" by the necessity of finding a rhyme for "luncheon," for "puncheon" was ready to his hand, and "nuncheon" was not a creation, but an archaism, defined by Johnson as "food eaten between meals." Let no one who perpends the amazing dinners eaten by our forefathers accuse those good men of gluttony. Let us rather bethink ourselves of their early and unsatisfying breakfasts, their lives of strenuous labour, their ignorance of five o'clock tea; and then thank the goodness and the grace which on our birth have smiled, and have given us more frequent meals and less ponderous dinners. Lord John Russell (1792-1878) published anonymously in 1820 a book of Essays and Sketches "by a Gentleman who has left his Lodgings." On the usages of polite society at the time no one was better qualified to speak, for Woburn Abbey was his home, and at Bowood and Holland House he was an habitual guest; and this is his testimony to the dining habits of society: "The great inconvenience of a London life is the late hour of dinner. To pass the day _impransus_ and then to sit down to a great dinner at eight o'clock is entirely against the first dictates of common sense and common stomachs. Women, however, are not so irrational as men, and generally sit down to a substantial luncheon at three or four; if men would do the same, the meal at night might be lightened of many of its weighty dishes and conversation would be no loser." So far, Luncheon (or Nuncheon) would seem to be exclusively a ladies' meal; and yet Dr. Kitchener could not have been prescribing for ladies only when he gave his surprising directions for a luncheon "about twelve," which might "consist of a bit of roasted Poultry, a basin of Beef Tea or Eggs poached or boiled in the shell, Fish plainly dressed, or a Sandwich; stale Bread, and half a pint of good Home-brewed Beer, or Toast and Water, with about one fourth or one-third part of its measure of Wine, of which Port is preferred, or one-seventh of Brandy."
In Miss Austen's books, Luncheon is dismissed under the cursory appellation of "Cold Meat," and Madeira and water seems to have been its accompaniment; but more prodigal methods soon began to creep in. The repast which Sam Weller pronounced "a wery good notion of a lunch" consisted of veal pie, bread, knuckle of ham, cold beef, beer, and cold punch; and let it be observed in passing that, had he used the word "lunch" in polite society, the omission of the second syllable would have been severely reprehended by a generation which still spoke of the "omnibus" and had only just discontinued "cabriolet." The verb "to lunch" was even more offensive than the substantive from which it was derived; and Lord Beaconsfield, describing the Season of 1832, says that "ladies were luncheoning on Perigord pie, or coursing in whirling britskas." To Perigord pies as a luncheon dish for the luxurious and eupeptic may be added venison pasties--
"Now broach me a cask of Malvoisie, Bring pasty from the doe,"
said the Duchess in "Coningsby." "That has been my luncheon--a poetic repast." And Lady St. Jerome, when she took Lothair to a picnic, fed him with lobster sandwiches and Chablis. Fiction is ever the mirror of fact; and a lady still living, who published her Memoirs only a year or two ago, remembers the Lady Holland who patronized Macaulay "sitting at a beautiful luncheon of cold turkey and summer salad."
But, in spite of all these instances, Luncheon was down to 1840 or thereabouts a kind of clandestine and unofficial meal. The ladies wanted something to keep them up. It was nicer for the children than having their dinner in the nursery. Papa would be kept at the House by an impending division, and must get a snack when he could--and so on and so forth. If a man habitually sate down to luncheon, and ate it through, he was contemned as unversed in the science of feeding. "Luncheon is a reflection on Breakfast and an insult to Dinner;" and moreover it stamped the eater as an idler. No one who had anything to do could find time for a square meal in the middle of the day. When Mr. Gladstone was at the Board of Trade, his only luncheon consisted of an Abernethy biscuit which Mrs. Gladstone brought down to the office and forced on the reluctant Vice-President.
But after 1840 a change set in. Prince Albert was notoriously fond of luncheon, and Queen Victoria humoured him. They dined late, and the Luncheon at the Palace became a very real and fully recognized meal. At it the Queen sometimes received her friends, as witness the Royal Journal--"Mamma came to luncheon with her lady and gentleman." It could not have been pleasant for the "lady and gentleman," but it established the practice.
"Sunday luncheon" was always a thing apart. For some reason not altogether clear, but either because devotion long sustained makes a strong demand on the nervous system or because a digestive nap was the best way of employing Sunday afternoon, men who ate no luncheon on week-days devoured Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding on Sundays and had their appropriate reward. Bishop Wilberforce, whose frank self-communings are always such delightful reading, wrote in his diary for Sunday, October 27, 1861: "Preached in York Minster. Very large congregation. Back to Bishopthorpe. Sleepy, _eheu_, at afternoon service; _must_ eat no luncheon on Sunday." When Luncheon had once firmly established itself, not merely as a meal but as an institution, Sunday luncheons in London became recognized centres of social life. Where there was even a moderate degree of intimacy a guest might drop in and be sure of mayonnaise, chicken, and welcome. I well remember an occasion of this kind when I saw social Presence of Mind exemplified, as I thought and think, on an heroic scale. Luncheon was over. It had not been a particularly bounteous meal; the guests had been many; the chicken had been eaten to the drumstick and the cutlets to the bone. Nothing remained but a huge Trifle, of chromatic and threatening aspect, on which no one had ventured to embark. Coffee was just coming, when the servant entered with an anxious expression, and murmured to the hostess that Monsieur Petitpois--a newly arrived French attaché--had come and seemed to expect luncheon. The hostess grasped the situation in an instant, and issued her commands with a promptitude and a directness which the Duke of Wellington could not have surpassed. "Clear everything away, but leave the Trifle. Then show M. Petitpois in." Enter Petitpois. "Delighted to see you. Quite right. Always at home at Sunday luncheon. Pray come and sit here and have some Trifle. It is our national Sunday dish." Poor young Petitpois, actuated by the same principle which made the Prodigal desire the husks, filled himself with sponge-cake, jam, and whipped cream; and went away looking rather pale. If he kept a journal, he no doubt noted the English Sunday as one of our most curious institutions, and the Trifle as its crowning horror.
Cardinal Manning, as all the world knows, never dined. "I never eat and I never drink," said the Cardinal. "I am sorry to say I cannot. I like dinner society very much. You see the world, and you hear things which you do not hear otherwise." Certainly that Cardinal was a fictitious personage, but he was drawn with fidelity from Cardinal Manning, who ate a very comfortable dinner at two o'clock, called it luncheon, and maintained his principle. There have always been some houses where the luncheons were much more famous than the dinners. Dinner, after all, is something of a ceremony: it requires forethought, care, and organization. Luncheon is more of a scramble, and, in the case of a numerous and scattered family, it is the pleasantest of reunions. "When all the daughters are married nobody eats luncheon," said Lothair to his solicitor, Mr. Putney Giles: but Mr. Putney Giles, "who always affected to know everything, and generally did," replied that, even though the daughters were married, "the famous luncheons at Crecy House would always go on and be a popular mode of their all meeting." When Lord Beaconsfield wrote that passage he was thinking of Chesterfield House, May Fair, some twenty years before Lord Burton bought it. Mr. Gladstone, who thought modern luxury rather disgusting, used to complain that nowadays life in a country house meant three dinners a day, and if you reckoned sandwiches and poached eggs at five o'clock tea, nearly four. Indeed, the only difference that I can perceive between a modern luncheon and a modern dinner is that at the former meal you don't have soup or a printed _menu_. But at a luncheon at the Mansion House you have both; so it is well for Lord Mayors that their reigns are brief.
One touch of personal reminiscence may close this study. While yet the Old Bailey stood erect and firm, as grim in aspect as in association, I used often, through the courtesy of a civic official, to share the luncheon of the judge and the aldermen, eaten during an interval in the trial, in a gloomy chamber behind the Bench. I still see, in my mind's eye, a learned judge, long since gone to his account, stuffing cold beef and pigeon pie, and quaffing London stout, black as Erebus and heavy as lead. After this repast he went back into Court (where he never allowed a window to be opened) and administered what he called justice through the long and lethargic afternoon. No one who had witnessed the performance could doubt the necessity for a Court of Criminal Appeal.
XXIV
TEA
Few, I fear, are the readers of Mrs. Sherwood. Yet in "The Fairchild Family" she gave us some pictures of English country life at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century which neither Jane Austen nor Mrs. Gaskell ever beat, and at least one scene of horror which is still unsurpassed. I cannot say as much for "Henry Milner, or the Story of a Little Boy who was not brought up according to the Fashions of this World." No, indeed--very far from it. And Henry now recurs to my mind only because, in narrating his history, Mrs. Sherwood archly introduces a sentence which may serve as a motto for this meditation. Like Bismarck (though unlike him in other respects), she was fond of parading scraps of a rather bald Latinity; and, in this particular instance, she combines simple scholarship with staid humour, making her hero exclaim to a tea-making lady, "Non possum vivere sine Te." The play on _Te_ and _Tea_ will be remarked as very ingenious. Barring the Latinity and the jest, I am at one with Mrs. Sherwood in the sentiment, "My heart leaps up when I behold" a teapot, like Wordsworth's when he beheld a rainbow; and the mere mention of tea in literature stirs in me thoughts which lie too deep for words. Thus I look forward with the keenest interest to
THE BOOK OF TEA
BY OKAKURA-KAKUZO
which the publishers promise at an early date. Solemn indeed, as befits the subject, is the preliminary announcement:--
"This book in praise of tea, written by a Japanese, will surely find sympathetic readers in England, where the custom of tea-drinking has become so important a part of the national daily life. Mr. Kakuzo shows that the English are still behind the Japanese in their devotion to tea. In England afternoon tea is variously regarded as a fashionable and luxurious aid to conversation, a convenient way of passing the time, or a restful and refreshing pause in the day's occupation, but in Japan tea-drinking is ennobled into Teaism, and the English cup of tea seems trivial by comparison."
This is the right view of Tea. The wrong view was lately forced into sad prominence in the Coroner's Court:--
DANGERS OF TEA-DRINKING
"In summing up at a Hackney inquest on Saturday, Dr. Wynn Westcott, the coroner, commented on the fact that deceased, a woman of twenty-nine, had died suddenly after a meal of steak, tomatoes, and tea. One of the most injudicious habits, he said, was to drink tea with a meat meal. Tea checked the flow of the gastric juice which was necessary to digestion. He was sorry if that went against teetotal doctrines, but if people must be teetotallers they had best drink water and not tea with their meals."
My present purpose is to enquire whether the right or the wrong view has more largely predominated in English history and literature. If, after the manner of a German commentator, I were to indulge in "prolegomena" about the history, statistics, and chemical analysis of Tea, I should soon overflow my limits; and I regard a painfully well-known couplet in which "tea" rhymes with "obey" as belonging to that class of quotations which no self-respecting writer can again resuscitate. Perhaps a shade, though only a shade, less hackneyed is Cowper's tribute to the divine herb:--
"Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in."
But this really leaves the problem unsolved. Cowper drank tea, and drank it in the evening; but whether he "had anything with it," as the phrase is, remains uncertain. Bread and butter, I think, he must have had, or toast, or what Thackeray scoffs at as the "blameless muffin"; but I doubt about eggs, and feel quite sure that he did not mingle meat and tea. So much for 1795, and I fancy that the practice of 1816 (when "Emma" was published) was not very different. When Mrs. Bates went to spend the evening with Mr. Woodhouse there was "vast deal of chat, and backgammon, and tea was made downstairs"; but, though the passage is a little obscure, I am convinced that the "biscuits and baked apples" were not served with the tea, but came in later with the ill-fated "fricassee of sweetbread and asparagus." Lord Beaconsfield, who was born in 1804, thus describes the evening meal at "Hurstley"--a place drawn in detail from his early home in Buckinghamshire: "Then they were summoned to tea.... The curtains were drawn and the room lighted; an urn hissed; there were piles of bread and butter, and a pyramid of buttered toast." And, when the family from the Hall went to tea at the Rectory, they found "the tea-equipage a picture of abundance and refinement. Such pretty china, and such various and delicious cakes! White bread, and brown bread, and plum cakes, and seed cakes, and no end of cracknels, and toasts, dry or buttered." Still here is no mention of animal foods, and even Dr. Wynn Westcott would have found nothing to condemn. The same refined tradition meets us in "Cranford," which, as we all know from its reference to "Pickwick," describes the social customs of 1836-7. Mrs. Jameson was the Queen of Society in Cranford, and, when she gave a tea-party, the herb was reinforced only by "very thin bread and butter," and Miss Barker was thought rather vulgar--"a tremendous word in Cranford"--because she gave seed cake as well. Even in "Pickwick" itself, though that immortal book does not pretend to depict the manners of polite society, the tea served in the sanctum of the "Marquis of Granby" at Dorking was flanked by nothing more substantial than a plate of hot buttered toast.
Impressive, therefore, almost startling, is the abrupt transition from these ill-supported teas (which, according to Dr. Wynn Westcott, were hygienically sound) to the feast, defiant of all gastronomic law, which Mrs. Snagsby spread for Mr. and Mrs. Chadband--"Dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin slices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, delicate little rows of anchovies nestling in parsley, new-laid eggs brought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast." German sausage washed down with tea! What, oh what, would the Coroner say? And what must be the emotions of the waiters at the House of Commons, with their traditions of Bellamy's veal pies and Mr. Disraeli's port, when they see the Labour Members sit down to a refection of Tea and Brawn? But, it may be urged, Medical Science is always shifting its ground, and what is the elixir of life to-day may be labelled Poison to-morrow. Thus Thackeray, using his keenest art to stigmatize the unwholesome greediness of a City Dinner, describes the surfeited guests adjourning after dinner to the Tea Room, and there "drinking slops and eating buttered muffins until the grease trickled down their faces." This was written in 1847; but in 1823 the great Dr. Kitchener, both physician and gastronomer, pronounces thus--"Tea after Dinner assists Digestion, quenches Thirst, and thereby exhilarates the Spirits," and he suggests as an acceptable alternative "a little warmed Milk, with a teaspoonful of Rum, a bit of Sugar, and a little Nutmeg." Truly our forefathers must have had remarkable digestions.
"These be black Vespers' pageants." I have spoken so far of Tea in the evening. When did people begin to drink Tea in the morning? I seem to remember that, in our earlier romancists and dramatists, Coffee is the beverage for breakfast. Certainly it is so--and inimitably described as well--in Lord Beaconsfield's account of a Yorkshire breakfast in "Sybil." At Holland House, which was the very ark and sanctuary of luxury, Macaulay in 1831 breakfasted on "very good coffee and very good tea, and very good eggs, butter kept in the midst of ice, and hot rolls." Here the two liquids are proffered, but meat is rigidly excluded, and Dr. Wynn Westcott's law of life observed. But nine years later the character of breakfast had altered, and altered in an unwholesome direction. The increasing practice of going to Scotland for the shooting season had familiarized Englishmen with the more substantial fare of the Scotch breakfast, and since that time the unhallowed combination of meat and tea has been the law of our English breakfast-table. Sir Thomas in the "Ingoldsby Legends," on the morning of his mysterious disappearance, had eaten for breakfast some bacon, an egg, a little broiled haddock, and a slice of cold beef.
"And then--let me see!--he had two, perhaps three, Cups (with sugar and cream) of strong gunpowder tea, With a spoonful in each of some choice _eau de vie_, Which with nine out of ten would perhaps disagree."
The same trait may be remembered in the case of Mrs. Finching, who, though she had cold fowl and broiled ham for breakfast, "measured out a spoonful or two of some brown liquid that smelt like brandy and put it into her tea, saying that she was obliged to be careful to follow the directions of her medical man, though the flavour was anything but agreeable."
Time passes, and the subject expands. We have spoken of Tea in the morning and Tea in the evening. To these must be added, if the topic were to be treated with scientific completeness, that early cup which opens our eyes, as each new day dawns, on this world of opportunity and wonder, and that last dread draught with which the iron nerves of Mr. Gladstone were composed to sleep after a late night in the House of Commons. But I have no space for these divagations, and must crown this imperfect study of Tea with the true, though surprising, statement that I myself--_moi qui vous parle_--have known the inventor of Five o'Clock Tea. This was Anna Maria Stanhope, daughter of the third Earl of Harrington and wife of the seventh Duke of Bedford. She died at an advanced age--rouged and curled and trim to the last--in 1857; but not before her life's work was accomplished and Five o'Clock Tea established among the permanent institutions of our free and happy country. Surely she is worthier of a place in the Positivist Kalendar of those who have benefited Humanity than Hippocrates, Harvey, or Arkwright; and yet Sir Algernon West writes thus in his book of "Recollections": "Late in the 'forties and in the 'fifties, Five o'Clock Teas were just coming into vogue, the old Duchess of Bedford's being, as I considered, very dreary festivities." Such is gratitude, and such is fame.
XXV
SUPPER
"S is the Supper, where all went in pairs; T is the Twaddle they talked on the stairs."
Though the merry muse of dear "C. S. C." may thus serve to introduce our subject, the repast which he has in view is only a very special and peculiar--one had almost said an unnatural--form of Supper. The Ball Supper, eaten anywhere between 12 o'clock and 2 A.M., is clearly a thing apart from the Supper which, in days of Early Dinner, made England great. Yet the Ball Supper had its charms, and they have been celebrated both in prose and in verse. Byron knew all about them:--
"I've seen some balls and revels in my time, And stay'd them over for some silly reason."
One of those reasons was the prospect of supping with Bessie Rawdon,[9] the only girl he ever saw
"Whose bloom could after dancing dare the dawn."
In her society a fresh zest was added to "the lobster salad, and champagne, and chat" which the poet loved so well.
[9] Afterwards Lady William Russell.
Fifty years had passed, and a Ball Supper was (and for all I know may still be) much the same. "The bright moments flew on. Suddenly there was a mysterious silence in the hall, followed by a kind of suppressed stir. Every one seemed to be speaking with bated breath, or, if moving, walking on tiptoe. It was the supper-hour--
'Soft hour which wakes the wish and melts the heart.'
'What a perfect family!' exclaimed Hugo Bohun as he extracted a couple of fat little birds from their bed of aspic jelly. 'Everything they do in such perfect taste! How safe you were here to have ortolans for supper!'" But, after all, Ball Suppers are frivolities, and College Suppers scarcely more serious; although a modern bard has endeavoured to give them a classical sanction by making young Horace at the University of Athens thus address himself to his new acquaintance Balbus:--
"A friend has sent me half-a-dozen brace Of thrush and blackbird from a moor in Thrace. These we will have for supper, with a dish Of lobster-patties and a cuttle-fish."
And we may be sure that a meal where Horace was host was not unaccompanied by wine and song.