Part 41

Such was the table and daily life of an author who began to despair of his country! In 1732, however, the dean was again full of hope,--we see it in the condition of his wine matters: “My stint in company,” he writes to Gay, “is a pint at noon, and half as much at night; but I often dine at home, like a hermit, and then I drink little or none at all.” Was it that he despaired again, when alone; or that he only drank copiously at others’ cost? Of his own cellar arrangements, though, he thus speaks: “My one hundred pounds will buy me six hogsheads of wine, which will support me a year, _provisæ frugis in annum copia_. Horace desired no more; for I will construe _frugis_ to be wine. How a man who drank little or none at home, and seldom saw company to help him to consume the remainder, could contrive to get through six hogsheads in a year, is a problem that will be solved when the philosophers of Laputa have settled _their_ theories.” Literature is a pleasant thing when its professors have not to write in order to live. Such was the case in the last century, with poor De Limiers, who was permitted to write in periodicals, on the stipulation that he “never told anybody.” It is said of him that he would have been an exceedingly clever person, if he had not always been hungry, but that famine spoiled his powers. This was the bookseller’s fault, not his. The same might nearly be said of poor Gerald Griffin; but _he_ kept his ability warm even amid cold hunger, and had the courage to write his noble tragedy “Gisippus” on scraps of paper picked up by him in wretched coffee-shops, where he used to take a late breakfast, and cajole himself into the idea that it was dinner.

When Cervantes, with two friends, were travelling from Esquivias, famous for its illustrious wines, towards Toledo, he was overtaken by a “polite student,” who added himself and his mule to the company of “the crippled sound one” and his friends, and who gave honest Miguel much fair advice touching the malady which was then swiftly killing him. “This malady is the dropsy,” said the student with the neck bands that would _not_ keep in their place,--“the dropsy, which all the water in the world would not cure, even if it were not salt; you must drink by rule, sir, and eat more, and this will cure you better than any medicine.” “Many have told me so,” was the reply of the immortal Miguel, “but I should find it as impossible to leave off drinking, as if I had been born for no other purpose. My life is well-nigh ended, and by the beatings of my pulse, I think next Sunday, at latest, will see the close of my career.” The great Spaniard was not very incorrect in his prognostic. I introduce this illustrative incident for a double reason; first, it is “germane to the matter” in hand, and secondly, it reminds me of a fact with the notice of which I will conclude this section of my imperfect narrative: I allude to

THE LIQUOR-LOVING LAUREATES.

It is incontrovertible that, with the exception of two or three, all our laureates have loved a more pleasant distillation than that from bay-leaves. In the early days, the “versificatores regis,” were rewarded, as all the minstrels in Teutonic ballads are, with a little money and a full bowl. The nightingales in kings’ cages piped all the better for their cake being soaked in wine. From the time of the first patented laureate, Ben Jonson, the rule has borne much the same character, and permanent thirstiness seems generally to have been seated under the laurel. Thus, Ben himself was given to joviality, jolly company, deep drinking, and late hours. His affection for a particular sort of wine acquired for him the nick-name of the Canary-bird; and indeed succeeding laureates who, down to Pye, enjoyed the tierce of Canary, partly owe it to Ben.

Charles I. added the wine to an increase of pay asked for by the bard; and the spontaneous generosity of one king became a rule for those that followed. The next laureate, Davenant, a vintner’s son, was far more dissolute in his drinking, for which he did not compensate by being more excellent in his poetry. The third of the patented laureates, Dryden, if he loved convivial nights, loved to spend them as Jonson did, in “noble society.” Speaking of the Roman poets of the Augustan age, he says:--“They imitated the best way of living, which was, to pursue an innocent and inoffensive pleasure; that which one of the ancients called ‘eruditam voluptatem.’ We have, like them, our genial nights, where our discourse is neither too serious nor too light, but always pleasant, and for the most part instructive; the raillery neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious on the absent; and the cups only such as will raise the conversation of the night, without disturbing the business of the morrow.” The genial nights, however, were not always so delightfully Elysian and æsthetic. When Rochester suspected Dryden of being the author of the “Essay on Satire,” which was really written by Lord Mulgrave, and which was offensive to Rochester, the latter took a very unpoetical revenge. As Dryden was returning from his _erudite voluptes_ at Wills’, and was passing through Rose-street, Covent Garden, to his house in Gerrard-street, he was waylaid and severely beaten, by ruffians who were believed to be in the pay of Rochester. The conversation of _that_ night certainly _must_ have disturbed the business of the morrow!

And next we come to hasty Shadwell, who may be summarily dismissed with the remark that he was addicted to sensual indulgence, and to any company that promised good wine, and plenty of it. Poor Nahum Tate, too, is described as “a free and fuddling companion;” but the miserable man had gone through more fiery trials than genial nights. Of Rowe, the contrary may be said. He was the great diner-out of his day; always vivacious, dashing, gay, good-humoured, and habitually generous, whether drunk or sober. He was but a poor poet, but he was succeeded by one who wrote worse and drank more--Eusden, of whom Gray writes to Mason that he “was a person of great hopes in his youth, though at last he turned out a drunken parson.” Cibber loved the bottle quite as intensely as Eusden did, and he was a gambler to boot; but there were some good points about Colley, although Pope has so bemauled him. Posterity has used Cibber as his eccentric daughter did when he went to her fish-stall to remonstrate with her against bringing disgrace upon his family by her adoption of such a course: the affectionate Charlotte caught up a stinking sole, and smacked her sire’s face with it; but Colley wiped his cheek, went home, and got drunk to prove that he was a gentleman. With heavy Whitehead we first fall in with indisputable respectability. He sipped his port, a pensioner at Lord Jersey’s table, and wrote classical tragedies, for which I heartily forgive him, because they are deservedly forgotten. His successor, slovenly Warton, exulted over his college wine with the gobble of a turkey-cock; and then came Pye, with his pleasant conviviality and his warlike strains, which “roared like a sucking dove,” and put to sleep the militia, which it was hoped they would have aroused. Pye was of the time of “Pindar, Pye, and Parvus Pybus;” and it was during his tenure of office that the tierce of Canary was discontinued, and the 27_l._ substituted. With Southey, a dignity was given to the laureateship, which it had, perhaps, never before enjoyed; and the poetic mantle fell on worthy shoulders, when it covered those of the gentle Wordsworth. Not that Wordsworth never was drunk. The bard of Rydal Mount _was_ once in his life “full of the god;” but he was drunk with strong enthusiasm too, and the occasion excused, if it did not sanctify the deed. The story is well told by De Quincey, and it runs thus:--

“For the first time in his life, Wordsworth became inebriated at Cambridge. It is but fair to add, that the first time was also the last time. But perhaps the strangest part of the story is the occasion of this drunkenness, which was the celebration of the first visit to the very rooms at Christ College once occupied by Milton,--intoxication by way of homage to the most temperate of men, and this homage offered by one who has turned out himself to the full as temperate! Every man, in the mean time, who is not a churl, must grant a privilege and charter of large enthusiasm to such an occasion; and an older man than Wordsworth, at that era not fully nineteen, and a man even without a poet’s blood in his veins, might have leave to forget his sobriety in such circumstances. Beside which, after all, I have heard from Wordsworth’s own lips that he was not too far gone to attend chapel decorously during the very acme of his elevation!”

De Quincey has told how pleasant, and cheerful, and conversational was the tea-time at Wordsworth’s table; and there, no doubt, the poet was far more, so to speak, in his element than when in the neighbourhood of wine, whose aid was not needed by him to elevate his conversation. But Wordsworth, gentle as he was, had nothing in him of the squire of dames, whom he generally treated with as much indifference as the present laureate, Tennison, was once said to feel for those very poetical little mortals,--children. And here I end the record of a few table traits of the patented laureates, adding no more of the fourteenth and last, that is, the present vice-Apollo to the Queen, than that he has said of his own tastes and locality to enjoy them in, in Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue, made at the Cock,--

“O plump head waiter at ‘The Cock,’ To which I most resort, How goes the time? ’Tis five o’clock. Go fetch a pint of port.

“But let it not be such as that You set before chance-comers, But such whose father-grape grew fat On Lusitanian summers.”

And now all things must have an end; and the end of pleasure is like the end of life,--weariness, satiety, and regret; and the end of a well-spent day is _not_ of that complexion, for its name should be “supper,” without which, however, a man had better go to bed, than with it and arise in debt. But, as the moral does not apply to us, you and I, Reader, if you will venture further with so indifferent a companion, will go hand in hand, before we finally separate.

SUPPER.

The supper was the only recognised repast in Rome; if, indeed, we may call that supper which sometimes took place at three in the afternoon. It was then rather a dinner, after which properly educated persons would not, and those who had supped over freely could not, eat again on the same day. The early supper hour was favoured by those who intended to remain long at table. “Imperat extructos frangere nona toros,” says Martial. The more frugal, but they must also have been the more hungry, supped, like the Queen of Carthage, at sunset; “labente die convivia quærit.” All other repasts than this had no allotted hour; each person followed inclination or necessity, and there was no difference in the _jentaculum_, the _prandium_, or the _merenda_,--the breakfast, dinner, or collation,--save difference of time. Bread, dried fruits, and perhaps honey, were alone eaten at these simple meals; whereat too, some, like Marius, drank before supper-time, “the genial hour for drinking.” The hosts were, in earlier ages, cooks as well as entertainers. Patroclus was famous for his Olla Podrida, and a Roman general received the Samnite ambassadors in a room where he was boiling turnips for his supper!

Sunset, however, was the _ordinary_ supper-time amongst the Romans. “De vespere suo vivere,” in Plautus, alludes to this. In the time of Horace, ten o’clock was not an unusual hour, and men of business supped even later. At the period of the decadence of the empire, it was the fashion to go to the baths at eight, and sup at nine. The repasts which commenced earlier than this were called _tempestiva_, as lasting a longer time. Those which began by daylight--_de die_--had a dissolute reputation; “ad amicam de die potare,” is a phrase employed in the _Asinaria_ to illustrate the great depravity of him to whom it is applied.

There is no doubt, I think, in spite of what critics say, that, however it may have been with the Romans, the Greeks certainly had four repasts every day. There was the breakfast (άκφκάτισμα), the dinner (ἄριστον), the collation (ἑσπέρισμα), and the chief of all, despite the term for dinner, the supper (δεῖπνον).

Among the Romans the _Cœna adventitia_ was the name given to suppers whereat the return of travellers to their homes was celebrated; the _Cœna popularis_ was simply a public repast, given to the people by the government; the _terrestris cœna_ was, as Hegio describes it in the _Captivei_, a supper of herbs, _multis oleribus_. The Greeks called such “a bloodless supper.” The parasite, in Athenæus, says that when he is going to a house to supper, he does not trouble himself to gaze at the architectural beauties of the mansion, nor the magnificence of the furniture, but at the smoke of the chimney. If it ascends in a thick column, he knows there is certainty of good cheer; but if it is a poor thread of smoke, says he, why then I know that there is no blood in the supper that is preparing: τὸ δεῖπνον ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ αἷμα ἔχει.

These repasts were gay enough when there was good Chian wine, unmixed with sea-water, to set the wit going. The banquets of Laïs were probably the most brilliant ever seen in Greece, for there was abundance of sprightly intellect at them. It might be said of them, as Sidney Smith says of what used to be in Paris under the ancient régime, when “a few women of brilliant talents violated all the common duties of life, and gave very pleasant little suppers.”

It is a well-ascertained fact that when the Greeks gave great entertainments, and got tipsy thereat, it was for pious reasons. They drank deeply in honour of some god. They not only drank deeply, but progressively so; their last cup at parting was the largest, and it went by the terrible name of the Cup of Necessity. There was a headache of twenty-anguish power at the bottom of it. Their pic-nic and conversation suppers were not bad things. Every guest brought his own rations in a basket; but as the rich and the selfish used to shame and tantalise the poorer guests by their savoury displays, Socrates, that dreadfully didactic personage, imperious as Beau Nash in matters of social discipline, insisted, that what each guest brought should be common to all. The result was less show and more comfort. But I would not have liked to have supped where Socrates was in the chair, for, in spite of his talents, he was a horrid bore, watching what and how each guest ate, and speaking to or at him whenever his acute eye discovered a rent in the coat of his good manners. If he sometimes said good things, he as frequently said sharp ones; and where he was president, the guests were simply at school.

It is indeed seldom that the sages are desirable associates. “Come and sup with me next Thursday,” said a French Amphitryon to a friend. “You shall meet philosophers or literary men; take your choice.” “My choice is soon made,” was the reply; “I will sup twice with you.” It was so arranged, and the supper with the _literati_ was incomparably the better banquet of the two.

The supper was the great meal of the Greeks; but neither at this, nor at any other repast, does Homer ever make mention of boiled meat. The Greeks, then, were not like our poor Greenwich pensioners, who, up to the present time, have never been provided with meat cooked in any other way. The result is that the men themselves look as if they were half-boiled. But a new order of things, including ovens and baked joints, has been introduced into the kitchen and refectory of the hospital, and the ancient mariners will soon show the effects of variety in diet and cooking, by a healthier and a happier hue on their solemn and storm-beaten cheeks.

And this matter of boiled meat reminds me of the old Duke of Grafton, who never ate any thing else at dinner or supper, (for it was in the days of double meals,) but boiled mutton. Yet every day the cook was solemnly summoned to his grace’s side, to listen to orders which he knew by heart, and instructions which wearied while they vexed his spirits. The duke must have been of the saddened constitution which would have entitled him to sup with that nervous Duke of Marlborough, who always joined with his invitation a request that his guest would say or do nothing to make him laugh, as his grace could not bear excitement.

At the supper-table the Romans did not decline the flesh of the ass, nor that of the dog; and they were as fond of finely fatted snails as the southern Germans are, who have inherited their taste. Macrobius, describing the supper given by the epicurean pontiff Lentulus, in honour of his reception, says that the first course was composed of sea hedgehogs, oysters, and asparagus. After these provocatives came a second course, consisting of more oysters, and various other shell-fish, fat pullets, beccaficoes, venison, wild boar, and sea nettles,--to digest the marine hedgehogs, I suppose. The third course assumed a more civilized aspect, and the guests were only tempted by fish, fowl, game, and cakes from the Ancona marshes. There is a supper of Lentulus, as described by Becker. The supper was given to Gallus, and the account of it is so little exaggerated as to afford a tolerably correct idea of what those banquets were. Nine guests, two of them “gentlemen from Perusia,” occupied the _triclinium_. The pictures around represented satyrs celebrating the joyous vintage; the death of the boar; fruit and provision pieces over the door, and similar designs, calculated to awaken a relish for the banquet, were suspended between the elegant branches occupied by living thrushes. The lowest place in the middle sofa was the seat for the most honoured guest. As soon as all were in a reclining posture, the attendant slaves took off their sandals, and water in silver basins was carried round by good-looking youths, and therewith the visitors performed their brief ablutions. At a nod from the host, two servants deposited the tray bearing the dishes of the first course in the centre of the table. The chief ornament of this tray, which was adorned with tortoise-shell, was a bronze ass, whose panniers were filled with olives, and on whose back rode a Silenus, whose pores exuded a sauce which fell upon the roast breast of a sow that had never fulfilled a mother’s duty, below. Sausages on silver gridirons, with Syrian plums and pomegranate seeds beneath them to simulate fire; and dishes, also of silver, containing various vegetables, shell-fish, snails, and a reptile or two, formed the other delicacies of this course. While the guests addressed themselves thereto, they were supplied with a beverage composed of wines and honey scientifically commingled. The glory of the first course was, however, the carved figure of the brooding hen, which was brought in on a separate small tray. The eggs taken from beneath her were offered to the guests, who found the apparent eggs made of dough, on breaking which with the spoon, a fat figpecker was seen lying in the pepper-seasoned yolk, and strongly tempting the beholder to eat. This delicacy, was, of course, readily eaten, and _mulsum_, the mixture of Hymettian honey and Falernian wines, was copiously drunk to aid digestion. A good deal of wine was imbibed, and numerous witch stories told (a favourite supper pastime), between and during the courses, at which the dishes were more and more elaborate and fantastic. A vast swine succeeded to a wild boar at the supper of Lentulus, who affecting to be enraged at his cook for forgetting to disembowel the animal before preparing it for the table, that official feigns to tremble with the energy of his repentance, and forthwith proceeds to perform the office of gutting the animal in presence of the guests. He plunges his knife into its flanks, when there immediately issues from the gaping wound string after string of little sausages. The conclusion of the supper is thus told:--“The eyes of the guest were suddenly attracted to the ceiling by a noise overhead; the ceiling opened, and a large silver hoop, on which were ointment bottles of silver and alabaster, silver garlands with beautifully chiselled leaves, and circlets and other trifles, descended upon the table; and after the dessert, prepared by the new baker, whom Lentulus purchased for a hundred thousand sesterces, had been served up, the party rose, to meet again in the brilliant saloon, the intervening moments being spent, by some in sauntering along the colonnades, and by others in taking a bath.”

In the description of the supper given by Siba to celebrate the return of Nero to Rome, we find that the slaves, when they took off the sandals of the guests, supplied them with others of a lighter description, which were fastened by crossed ribands. Those who did not come in “dress,” were furnished with variegated woollen vestments to cover their togas. Siba’s banquet began to the sound of a hydraulic organ, which, however, was only in place of our dinner-bell. When the lime-wood tables were duly covered and flowered, the guests took their places to the sound of flutes and harps, and said a sort of _grace_, by invoking Jupiter; while a modest libation of wine was cast on the floor in honour of the household gods. The first course consisted of some remarkably strange dishes, but the guests reserved their appetite, or provoked it with pickled radishes, fried grasshoppers, and similar cattle. A master of drinking was then chosen, whose duty it was to regulate how often the guests should drink; and the latter invariably selected the most confirmed toper. _We_ leave this office to the master of the house, and in well-regulated families that high official leaves his guests to do according to their good pleasure. The garlands having been duly encircled round the brows of Siba’s friends, the trumpets announced the entrance of the second course. The second course was duly discussed, its extraordinary dishes thoroughly consumed, and the four cups were drained to Nero; being the number of letters in his name; and a good deal of jollity began to abound, which was checked a little by the arrival of a present from the emperor, sent to Siba, and which consisted of a silver skeleton. As the guests feared to interpret the meaning of the gift they fell to deeper drinking, and then to singing, and philosophising; and then resumed their eating; and when the force of nature could no further go, they called in the jugglers, and tumblers, and buffoons, and puppets, and having drawn as much amusement from these as they possibly could, they whipped up their flagging sensations by looking at the feats of Spanish dancing girls, and these were succeeded by ten couple of gladiators, who slew one another in the apartment for the pastime of the supremely indifferent personages who lay half asleep and half drunk, and lazily applauded the murderous play. The company were in the very midst of this innocent amusement when the fire was lit up in Rome by Nero, and which did not spare the mansion of Siba. The struggle to escape was not more furious and selfish than that which took place at Prince Schwartzenberg’s ball in Paris, at which the devouring flames had as little respect for some of the guests as they had at the terrible supper of Caius Siba.