A DINNER-PARTY.
WAS IT A SUCCESS?
By John Eddy.
“The work of feeding, you must understand,
Was but a fraction of the work in hand.”
⁂ Atlantic Monthly, November, 1872.
In the year of grace 1855 there resided at the fashionable end of one of the largest of our Eastern cities, a person who will be called for the purpose of this article Bernon Burchard. He is not a myth, but a veritable person. For fifteen years he had been a practising lawyer, and had risen to eminence in his profession. His personal appearance was fine and prepossessing. His mind was clear, vigorous, and well-stored with varied learning. His sense of honor was pure and discriminating, and like the president of the Jewish Sanhedrim in the days of Caius Cæsar, he “was had in reputation of all the people.” He was blessed with a capacious soul, and seemed naturally inclined to acts of benevolence and generosity. In society he held the foremost rank, and was fitted by birthright, education, and taste for the highest social position. His noble nature, his wit and learning and generous flow of spirits, united to complete a most pleasing and model gentleman.
At this time, upon the old estate in Lancashire, England, from which the first of the Burchards in this country emigrated in 1630, there resided Winfield Burchard, who dispensed generous hospitality to all the American kindred who made pilgrimage to fatherland. Mr. Bernon Burchard in particular, of all the name, had special occasion for holding the said Winfield in lasting remembrance and esteem for the many and great favors bestowed upon him and his immediate family during a series of years,—favors which were rendered doubly pleasing because it was nearly certain from the age and infirmities of the host that the branch of the family on this side of the Atlantic would never have the opportunity of reciprocating the favors in kind.
At a certain period in the year first mentioned, when Bernon Burchard’s enthusiasm was all aglow for his English namesake, there called upon him the Rev. Mr. Malcolm of Oxford, with a letter of introduction from Winfield, wherein he commended his nephew to the attention of Mr. Bernon for his many virtues and acquirements.
He was cordially received, and Mr. Bernon Burchard at once determined to show his new cousin every mark of consideration and attention, as some slight token of the regard in which he held the writer of the letter.