"Rôts.—Chapons, quails, turkey poults, green goose.
"Entremets.—Asperges: haricot à la Française: mayonnaise de homard: gelée Macédoine: aspics d'œufs de pluvier: Charlotte Russe: gelée au Marasquin: crême marbre: corbeille de pâtisserie: vol-au-vent de rhubarb: tourte d'abricots: corbeille des meringues: dressed crab: salade au gélantine.—Champignons aux fines herbes.
"Relevés.—Soufflé à la vanille: Nesselrode pudding: Adelaide sandwiches: fondus. Pièces montées," etc.
The reader will not fail to observe how well the English dishes,—turtle, whitebait, and venison,—relieve the French in this dinner: and what a breadth, depth, solidity, and dignity they add to it. Green goose, also, may rank as English, the goose being held in little honour, with the exception of its liver, by the French; but we think Comte D'Orsay did quite right in inserting it. The execution is said to have been pretty nearly on a par with the conception, and the whole entertainment was crowned with the most inspiriting success. The price was not unusually large.[57]
FREEMASONS' TAVERN, GREAT QUEEN-STREET.
This well-appointed tavern, built by William Tyler, in 1786, and since considerably enlarged, in addition to the usual appointments, possesses the great advantage of Freemasons' Hall, wherein take place some of our leading public festivals and anniversary dinners, the latter mostly in May and June. Here was given the farewell dinner to John Philip Kemble, upon his retirement from the stage, in 1817; the public dinner, on his birthday, to James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, in 1832; Mollard, who has published an excellent Art of Cookery, was many years Maître d'Hôtel, and proprietor of the Freemasons' Tavern.
In the Hall meet the Madrigal Society, the Melodists' and other musical clubs: and the annual dinners of the Theatrical Fund, Artists' Societies, and other public institutions, are given here.
Freemasons' Hall has obtained some notoriety as the arena in which were delivered and acted the Addresses at the Anniversary Dinners of the Literary Fund, upon whose eccentricities we find the following amusing note in the latest edition of the Rejected Addresses:—
"The annotator's first personal knowledge of William Thomas Fitzgerald, was at Harry Greville's Pic-Nic Theatre, in Tottenham-street, where he personated Zanga in a wig too small for his head. The second time of seeing him was at the table of old Lord Dudley, who familiarly called him Fitz, but forgot to name him in his will. The Viscount's son, however, liberally supplied the omission by a donation of five thousand pounds. The third and last time of encountering him was at an anniversary dinner of the Literary Fund, at the Freemasons' Tavern. Both parties, as two of the stewards, met their brethren in a small room about half-an-hour before dinner. The lampooner, out of delicacy, kept aloof from the poet. The latter, however, made up to him, when the following dialogue took place: