[80] “When four hours be past, after Breakfast, a man may safely taste his Dinner,—the most convenient time for dinner, is about eleven of the clocke before noone,—in 1570, this was the usual time of serving it in the University of Oxford,—elsewhere about noone,—it commonly consisted of boyled biefe, with pottage, bread and beere, and no more,—the quantity of biefe was in value an halfe-penny for each mouth,—they supped at five of the clocke in the Afternoon.”—Vide Cogan’s Haven of Health, 1584, p. 187.
Early hours were as Genteel in Dr. Cogan’s time, as late ones are now, 1821.
“Perhaps none of our Old English customs have undergone so thorough a change, as the hours of rising,—taking refreshment—the number of meals per day—and the time of retiring to rest.
“The stately dames of Edward IV.’s Court, rose with the Lark, despatched their dinner at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and shortly after eight were wrapt in slumber.—How would these reasonable people (reasonable at least in this respect) be astonished could they but be witnesses to the present distribution of time among the Children of Fashion!—Would they not call the perverse conduct of those who rise at one or two, dine at eight,—and retire to bed when the morning is unfolding all its glories, and nature putting on her most pleasing aspect,—absolute insanity!!”—Warner’s Antiq. Cul. p. 134.
“The modern hours of eating are got to an excess that is perfectly ridiculous. Now, what do people get by this? If they make Dinner their principal Meal, and do not wish to pall their appetite by eating before it—they injure their health. Then in Winter they have two hours of candlelight before Dinner, and in Summer they are at table during the pleasantest part of the Day; and all this, to get a Long Morning,—for Idle People, to whom one would suppose the shortest morning would seem too Long.”—Pye’s Sketches, 12mo. 1797, p. 174.
[81] Mr. Peck, Grocer, &c., No. 175, Strand, has printed a very ingenious chart of the “Geographie de la Gourmandise.”—“A Map of the four quarters of the World, intended to show the different parts from whence all the articles in his catalogue are imported.”—See also “Carte Gastronomique de la France,” prefixed to that entertaining work, “Cours Gastronomique,” 8vo. 1809.
[82] “A Wag, on being told it was the fashion to dine later and later every day, said, He supposed it would end at last in not dining till to-morrow!!”
[83] “It is at the commencement of Decline, i. e. about our 40th year, that the Stomach begins to require peculiar care and precaution. People who have been subject to Indigestions before, have them then more frequent and more violent; and those who have never been so afflicted, begin to suffer them from slight causes: a want of attention to which too frequently leads to the destruction of the best constitutions, especially of the studious, who neglect to take due exercise. The remedy proposed is Ipecacuanha, in a dose that will not occasion any nausea; but enough to excite such an increased action of the vermicular movement of the stomach, that the phlegm may be separated and expelled from that organ.
“The effects of it surpassed his most sanguine hopes: by the use of it, notwithstanding he had naturally a delicate constitution, he weathered the storms of the Revolution,” &c., and lived to be 84.
The above is an extract from Dr. Buchan’s translation of Mr. Daubenton’s Observations on Indigestion. This treatise brought Ipecacuanha Lozenges into fashion, as the most easy and agreeable manner of taking it: they contain about one-sixth of a grain, and are prepared and sold by Savory and Moore, Chemists, in Bond Street.