THE ART OF DINING.
"If you'd be a healthy sinner,
Eat with judgment when at dinner,
And remember with a shiver
Man is governed by his liver;
Viands rich and wine in plenty
Spoil life's dolce far niente.
He who shuns this vital question
Suffers soon from indigestion;
The corner-stone of dissipation
Is to act with moderation."
When the sceptre of the Cæsars passed into the hands of St. Peter and his successors, it carried with it among other fixtures--to use a legal expression--the art of giving a good dinner. The clergy have, therefore, always been famous for their attention to creature comforts, and among the various arts which they rescued from the wreck of the classic world, the art of dining is certainly one of which they were most careful.
In England the fat abbots and portly monks of the past have been transmuted, through the agency of that royal magician, Henry VIII, into the comfortable bishops and delectable vicars of the present; but the change is actually only in the Thirty-nine Articles, and the science of gastronomy still has its wisest savants among the clergy.
It is true that some ascetics, wishing to return to the bosom of the Romish Church, have denied themselves all dainties in favour of lentils and pulse; but, unlike Daniel and his friends, they are no fairer for doing so; yet the general run of curates (provided they are well paid), rectors, vicars, deans, bishops, yea, even archbishops, are worthy successors to the clerical gourmands of the Middle Ages so satirised by Rabelais, and are as careful of their cellars and kitchens as of their churches and parishioners.
Mr. Clendon, dry-as-dust grubber among ancient folios as he was, by no means neglected the substance for the shadow, and satisfied his brain, his stomach, and his palate in equal measure--the former by means of choice editions, the latter by choice viands; but, truth to tell, he to all appearances throve more on the library than on the kitchen.
The number of guests at dinner, according to some gastronomical worthy, should never be less than the three Graces nor greater than the nine Muses, so Vicar Clendon had taken this sage advice by limiting the friends assembled round his hospitable board to eight people, the sexes being in equal numbers, i.e. four of the one and four of the other.
The host took in Mrs. Valpy. A most admirable arrangement, as both were fond of their victuals, and thought eating preferable to talking, especially when the cook was a good one, as happened in this case.
Mr. Gelthrip escorted Mrs. Belswin. Fire and water! Sweet and sour! Black and white! Two galley slaves chained together against their will could not have been less suited than the clergyman and the companion were to one another. Good-breeding forbade either resenting the juxtaposition, so they had smiles on their faces and rage in their hearts at being thus coupled so unsuitably by their Amphitryon.
The engaged ones, of course, went dining-room-wards together--a good omen of the future, in the eyes of both, hinting that they would thus wander side by side towards the good things of this life.