Thirdly, they raise an expectation in the person by law and custom entitled to them, and who will consequently be displeased with the disappointment.
Now, in order to descend minutely into any rules for good-breeding, it will be necessary to lay some scene, or to throw our disciple into some particular circumstance. We will begin them with a visit in the country; and as the principal actor on this occasion is the person who receives it, we will, as briefly as possible, lay down some general rules for his conduct; marking, at the same time, the principal deviations we have observed on these occasions.
When an expected guest arrives to dinner at your house, if your equal, or indeed not greatly your inferior, he should be sure to find your family in some order, and yourself dressed and ready to receive him at your gate with a smiling countenance. This infuses an immediate chearfulness into your guest, and persuades him of your esteem and desire of his company. Not so is the behaviour of Polysperchon, at whose gate you are obliged to knock a considerable time before you gain admittance. At length, the door being opened to you by a maid or some improper servant, who wonders where the devil all the men are, and, being asked if the gentleman is at home, answers she believes so, you are conducted into a hall, or back-parlour, where you stay some time before the gentleman, in a dishabille from his study or his garden, waits upon you, asks pardon, and assures you he did not expect you so soon.
Your guest, being introduced into a drawing-room, is, after the first ceremonies, to be asked whether he will refresh himself after his journey, before dinner (for which he is never to stay longer than the usual or fixed hour). But this request is never to be repeated oftener than twice, not in imitation of Calepus, who, as if hired by a physician, crams wine in a morning down the throats of his most temperate friends, their constitutions being not so dear to them as their present quiet.
When dinner is on the table, and the ladies have taken their places, the gentlemen are to be introduced into the eating-room, where they are to be seated with as much seeming indifference as possible, unless there be any present whose degrees claim an undoubted precedence. As to the rest, the general rules of precedence are by marriage, age, and profession. Lastly, in placing your guests, regard is rather to be had to birth than fortune; for, though purse-pride is forward enough to exalt itself, it bears a degradation with more secret comfort and ease than the former, as being more inwardly satisfied with itself, and less apprehensive of neglect or contempt.
The order in helping your guests is to be regulated by that of placing them; but here I must, with great submission, recommend to the lady at the upper end of the table to distribute her favours as equally and as impartially as she can. I have sometimes seen a large dish of fish extend no farther than to the fifth person, and a haunch of venison lose all its fat before half the table had tasted it.
A single request to eat of any particular dish, how elegant soever, is the utmost I allow. I strictly prohibit all earnest solicitations, all complaints that you have no appetite, which are sometimes little less than burlesque, and always impertinent and troublesome.
And here, however low it may appear to some readers, as I have known omissions of this kind give offence, and sometimes make the offenders, who have been very well-meaning persons, ridiculous, I cannot help mentioning the ceremonial of drinking healths at table, which is always to begin with the lady's and next the master's of the house.
When dinner is ended, and the ladies retired, though I do not hold the master of the feast obliged to fuddle himself through complacence (and, indeed, it is his own fault generally if his company be such as would desire it), yet he is to see that the bottle circulate sufficient to afford every person present a moderate quantity of wine if he chuses it; at the same time permitting those who desire it either to pass the bottle or to fill their glass as they please. Indeed, the beastly custom of besotting, and ostentatious contention for pre-eminence in their cups, seems at present pretty well abolished among the better sort of people. Yet Methus still remains, who measures the honesty and understanding of mankind by a capaciousness of their swallow; who sings forth the praises of a bumper, and complains of the light in your glass; and at whose table it is as difficult to preserve your senses as to preserve your purse at a gaming-table or your health at a b—y-house. On the other side, Sophronus eyes you carefully whilst you are filling out his liquor. The bottle as surely stops when it comes to him as your chariot at Temple-bar; and it is almost as impossible to carry a pint of wine from his house as to gain the love of a reigning beauty, or borrow a shilling of P—— W——.
But to proceed. After a reasonable time, if your guest intends staying with you the whole evening, and declines the bottle, you may propose play, walking, or any other amusement; but these are to be but barely mentioned, and offered to his choice with all indifference on your part. What person can be so dull as not to perceive in Agyrtes a longing to pick your pockets, or in Alazon a desire to satisfy his own vanity in shewing you the rarities of his house and gardens? When your guest offers to go, there should be no solicitations to stay, unless for the whole night, and that no farther than to give him a moral assurance of his being welcome so to do; no assertions that he shan't go yet; no laying on violent hands; no private orders to servants to delay providing the horses or vehicles—like Desmophylax, who never suffers any one to depart from his house without entitling him to an action of false imprisonment.