Table traits, with something on them

by Dr. Doran

But as this merry mourner lived, so may he almost be said to have died. It will be remembered with what disgust Evelyn records the scene at Whitehall, a week before the king’s decease:—“I can never forget,” he says, “the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all dissoluteness, and as it were total neglectfulness of God, it being Sunday evening, which this day sennight I was witness of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, Mazarine, &c.; a French boy singing love-songs in that glorious gallery; whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at basset, round a large table, a bank of at least two thousand pounds in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who were with me made reflections in astonishment. Six days after, all was in the dust.”

There was more meanness, but not more decency, under James II., but his queen more deeply resented, and that in public, at dinner, the insults levelled at her. When Mrs. Sedly, in 1686, was created Countess of Dorchester, the day on which the nomination passed the Great Seal, and indeed on a subsequent occasion, the queen showed how she was touched by the honours paid to a brazen concubine. “The queen,” says Evelyn, “took it very grievously, so as for two dinners, standing near her, I observed she hardly ate one morsel, nor spake one word to the king, or to any about her; though at other times she used to be extremely pleasant, full of discourse and good-humour.” Such is one of the table traits of the time of James II.

There is little to be said of William III., save that he kept a well-regulated table, and was excessively angry if he detected any faults in the service. He is described as being kind, cordial, open, even convivial and jocose. He would sit at table many hours, and would bear his full share in festive conversation. Burnet, I think, somewhere intimates, but I cannot recollect the precise words, that he was something more than moderately given to Hollands. As much, indeed, has been said of Queen Anne. But Anne was inclined to indulge in good living, and her doctor, Lister, had as many gastronomic propensities as herself. Lister entered into the minutiæ of the kitchen with the exactness of an apothecary weighing poison. On the subject of larks, he says, for the benefit of the queen, and all who love such dainty food, that if twelve larks do not weigh twelve ounces, they are scarcely eatable; they are just tolerable if they reach that weight; but that if they weigh thirteen ounces, they are fat and excellent! On such table matters did royal physicians write, when Anne was queen.

The table of George, Prince Regent, was splendidly served. The court language was French, as though the days of the Normans were come again. But the son of George III., whether as prince or as king, and despite his character of being the first gentleman in Europe, was not naturally refined. He loved to have around him men like Humboldt, who, when his guest, amused him with stories as broad as they were long. He himself would tell similar stories, even in the presence of his mother and sisters, and in spite of a sharp “Fie, George!” and an indignant working of her fan on the part of Queen Charlotte. When king, the female society which he assembled at the Pavilion was very décolleté indeed, both as regarded person and principles, and the appearance of these brilliant looking and light dressed individuals in the day-time gave to Brighton an aspect that put Rowland Hill into fits. There were joyous evenings then at Virginia Water, on “tea and marrow bones,” and there was everything there but refinement. Refinement, indeed, was not the characteristic of any one prince of the house. The Duke of Cumberland revelled in coarse jests, and was delighted when they embarrassed the modesty that could not even comprehend them. The Duke of Cambridge was perhaps the least offensive of the family. He was the professional diner-out of the house; and in his day very few public dinners took place without having the advantage of his presence as president. He was, on such occasions, punctuality itself, and could not tolerate being kept waiting. In such cases, he sometimes wiled away the time by trying over music with the musical gentlemen whose harmony was to relieve the toasts and tedium of the evening, but his impatience sometimes got the better of his politeness and of his reverence for serious things, and we shall not soon forget the effect he produced at a “religious public dinner,” by exclaiming aloud, “Where is the chaplain? d—n him! Why doesn’t he say grace?” Before passing to the next reign, we may take notice of a fact that is not generally known, but which nevertheless cannot be disputed. The coronation banquet of George IV. was one of the most splendid upon record. But there was a world of “leather and prunella” about it, in spite of its reputed splendour. Thus, for instance, the king’s table was one gorgeous display of gold plate, but the plates and dishes at all the other tables, one only, I believe, excepted, were composed of nothing more costly than good, honest pewter. The metal was indeed so splendidly burnished that to the eye no silver highly polished could have been more dazzling; but the truth remains that the peerage that day dined off pewter. But the occasion gave value to the material, and the dishes, in their character of relics of the glory of the last coronation banquet in Westminster Hall, are as highly prized, and as reverently preserved, as though they were composed of materials less strange to Potosi than tin, antimony, and a trifle of copper.

Court life, in the reign of William IV., was but of a very sombre aspect. The good old king used to indulge in giving toasts after dinner, and he made long and somewhat prosy speeches. Of the latter he was particularly fond, and he made the then young Prince George of Cambridge his pupil, by giving the health of his father, the Duke, and inducing the son to rise and return thanks for the honour conferred. It was no bad discipline for one who intended to become a public man. The young prince became a very fair speaker under the old king’s instructions. William detested politics, and he invariably fell asleep during the dessert. It would have violated etiquette to have awoke him; and the queen and her ladies never thought of rising until the royal eye-lids began again to give symptoms of returning wakefulness. He was fond of talking, over the wine, of military details, and was proud of two achievements connected therewith; first, that he had made Colonel Needham shave off his cherished whiskers, according to the new regulations; and that he had succeeded in having all the Waterloo medals worn with the king’s head outwards. He frequently fell asleep during these conversations; and then the guests quietly passed the wine from one to the other, and, as they drank off their glasses, bowed to or smiled at the sleeping sovereign the while. In the evening, there generally was music, during which the Queen Adelaide was as generally engaged in worsted work. The king usually honoured some one with an invitation to sit by his side on the sofa. He then fell asleep again, and the unlucky, honoured individual, did not dare leave his “coign of ’vantage” until the king awoke and gave the signal. William was a very moderate joker, and he loved a joke from others. It is reported that, when heir presumptive, he once said to a Secretary of the Admiralty who was at the same dinner-table, “C——, when I am king, you shall not be Admiralty Secretary! Eh, what do you say to that?” “All that I have to say to that, in such a case, is,” said C——, “God save the king!” I have heard it further said, that William never laughed so loudly as when he was told of a certain parvenu lady, who, dining at Sir John Copley’s, ventured to express her surprise that there was “no pilfered water on the table.”

The dining-tables of deceased monarchs belong to history; and, consequently, the limit of this imperfect record is to be found here. One further illustration, however, of “household” matters may here be not inaptly introduced. A few months ago a gentleman, who had been in his early years the personal friend of the Duke of Kent, was desirous of sending from Sicily a testimonial of his respect to the late Duke’s daughter, our sovereign lady the Queen. His grateful remembrance took the shape of some very rare and choice Sicilian wine, the proper transmission of which was entrusted to the good offices of a friend of the donor. This honorary agent proceeded to the proper office for instructions, and there he was somewhat surprised at being informed that, as soon as the duty had been paid upon the wine, the latter would be forwarded to the “household.” At this strange intimation, the friendly agent wrote to his principal for fresh instructions, and the principal, who had not the slightest intention of showing his respect for the memory of a sire by presenting wine to the “household” of that sire’s royal daughter, at once directed the luscious tribute to be divided among friends who had households of their own, and who could appreciate the present. The rule, with regard to offerings like these, was not in former times so ungraciously severe. When Mrs. Coutts used to send her pleasant tributary haunches of venison to the Pavilion, she was not informed that the “household” would condescend to dine upon the venison: on the contrary, a graceful autograph note from the royal recipient not only made cheerful acknowledgment of the gift, but also gave hearty promise that it would be thoroughly enjoyed. There is more independence, perhaps, in the present system, which discourages all tributes, whatever may be their nature; but there is something very ungracious in the method of its application.

Enough, however, of this matter, or we shall have little time to discuss, even briefly, two other subjects, touching which I would say something, before we are finally called to “supper.” The first of these comes under the head of “Strange Banquets.”

STRANGE BANQUETS.

Under this title I was half inclined to include the records of the achievements of those gastronomic heroes, whose spirit was something like that of the boy’s who ate with two spoons, and cried because he could not swallow faster. But, from Milo and his entire bull for dinner, down to Dando and his peck of oysters for supper, there is a sameness of very gross detail, and perhaps not very great truth, in all. The rustic who was victor at an eating match, “by a pig and an apple pie,” was on a level with the ancient kings, who were wont to boast that they could carry more beneath their belts with impunity than any other men. So the ardour of the two villages contemplating their respective champions—gluttons employed for the honour of their several birth-places—and the exultation of one party at finding its favourite ahead “by two turkeys and a pound of sausages,” gave proof of as much dignity of humanity as was given in their case by those nations of old who weighed their kings annually, and had a general illumination when they found their monarchs growing fatter.

These illustrations of table manners, if indeed they deserve to be so called, we leave to the perusal of those whose devotion is of that cast that they would have reckoned Baal as a god, for no other reason than the sufficient one given of old, namely, that he ate much meat. In more modern times, we have had defunct kings who have been supposed capable of consuming as much as Baal himself, or any of his lively followers; for an illustration of which fact we must pass over, for a short time, to the once kingdom of France.