Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

TABLE TRAITS,

WITH

SOMETHING ON THEM.

BY

DR. DORAN.

“Je suis aujourd’hui en train de conter; plaise à Dieu que cela ne
soit pas une calamité publique.”--BRILLAT SAVARIN.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET;

OLIVER & BOYD, EDINBURGH; HODGES & SMITH, DUBLIN;

AND TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS, AND AT THE RAILWAY STATIONS.

1854.

LONDON:

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

HENRY, EARL OF HAREWOOD,

IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF BY-GONE

HAPPY YEARS,

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED

BY

THE AUTHOR.

BILL OF FARE.

PAGE

The Legend of Amphitryon--a Prologue 1

Diet and Digestion 9

Water 14

Breakfast 26

Materials for Breakfast 31

Corn, Bread, &c. 36

Tea 48

Coffee 57

Chocolate 64

The Old Coffee Houses 67

The French Cafés 80

The Ancient Cook and his Art 86

The Modern Cook and his Science 99

Pen and Ink Sketch of Carême 114

Dinner Traits 123

The Materials for Dining 136

A Light Dinner for two 169

Sauces 190

The Parasite 219

Table Traits of Utopia and the Golden Age 230

Table Traits of England in the Early Times 244

Table Traits of the Last Century 260

Wine and Water 282

The Birth of the Vine, and what has come of it 287

The Making and Marring of Wine 303

Imperial Drinkers and Incidents in Germany 312

An Incident of Travel 313

A few odd Glasses of Wine 324

The Tables of the Ancient and Modern Egyptians 341

The Diet of Saints of Old 353

The Bridal and Banquet of Ferques 372

The Support of Modern Saints 377

The Cæsars at Table 394

Their Majesties at Meat 412

English Kings at their Tables 442

Strange Banquets 467

The Castellan Von Coucy 473

Authors and their Dietetics 487

The Liquor-loving Laureates 508

Supper 513

TABLE TRAITS,

WITH SOMETHING ON THEM.

THE LEGEND OF AMPHITRYON.

A PROLOGUE.

“_Le véritable Amphitryon est l’Amphitryon où l’on dîne._”--MOLIÈRE.

Among well-worn illustrations and similes, there are few that have been more hardly worked than the above line of Poquelin-Molière. It is a line which tells us pleasantly enough, that he who sits at the head of a table is among those “respectable” powers who find an alacrity of worship at the hands of man. I say, “at the hands;” for what is “adoration” but the act of putting the hand to the mouth (as expressed by its components _ad_ and _os_, _oris_)? and what worship is so common as that which takes this form, especially when the Amphitryon is amiable, and his altar well supplied?

But such a solution of the question affords us, after all, no enlightenment as to the mystery of the reality of Amphitryon himself, whose name is now worn, and sometimes usurped, by those who preside at modern banquets. Was he real? is he a myth? was he ever in the body? or is his name that of a shadow only, employed for purposes of significance? If real, whence came he? What does classic story say of the abused husband of Alcmena?

Amphitryon was a Theban gentleman, who had two nephews, fast young men, who were slain by the Teleboans. This is a myth. They were extravagant individuals, of the class of those who count the chimes at midnight. Their father could not help them; and so the uncle, a bachelor, was expected to do his avuncular office, spend his substance for the benefit of his brother’s children, and get small thanks for his trouble. His brother, however, had an article of small value,--a daughter, named Alcmena; and this lady was given in marriage to her uncle, without any scruple about the laws of affinity. As soon as the ceremony of the betrothal was over, Amphitryon departed to punish the Teleboans; and he had not been long absent, when Jupiter presented himself in the likeness of the absent husband, set up a household with the readily-convinced Alcmena, and became the father of Hercules. When Amphitryon returned, his surprise was natural, and his ill-temper not to be wondered at. But Jupiter explained the imbroglio in a very cavalier way, as was his custom, and which they who are curious may see in the liveliest of the lively comedies of the miller’s man, Plautus.

An incident connected with the story shows us that Amphitryon, fond of good living generally, and of beef in particular, made a razzia among the Teleboan herds, and brought back all the cows and oxen he found amongst them. He was exhibiting the cattle to his brother Electryon, when one of the animals strayed from the herd; and Amphitryon, in order to bring it back, flung a stick at it, but with such violence, that the weapon, falling on the horns, rebounded as violently upon Electryon, who died upon the spot. But this, too, is a myth; and I have no doubt but that Electryon died of indigestion; for the Teleboan beef was famous for its toughness. Indeed, many of the Teleboës themselves were so disgusted with it, that they abandoned their Ætolian homes, and settled in the island of Capreæ.

The Egyptians claim Amphitryon for their own. They boast that his dinners at Memphis were divine, and that Hercules, his son, was among the last-born of the gods; for Hercules was more than a hero among the leek-worshippers of Egypt. But the truth is, that the story of Amphitryon, his strength, his good fare, and his hard fate, belongs to a more distant period and land. It is a Hindoo story, the actors are children of the sun, and Voltaire declares that the tale is to be found in Dow’s “Hindostan;” but that is as much of a fable as the legend itself of Amphitryon, whose name, by the way, may be as easily “Indicized” as that of Pythagoras.

In Scotland, the crime of child-stealing is distinguished by the title of “plagiary;” and an instance of the latter is here before us. When Plautus sat in his master’s mill, and thought over the subject of his lively comedy, founded on the story of Amphitryon, he took for granted all that he had been told of his hero’s birth and parentage. But the classical Amphitryon is, as I have said, but a stolen child. His home is in the far East; and his history was calling up smiles upon the faces of listeners by the Indus long before the twin founders of Rome had been intrusted, by their nurse Lupa, to walk alone. The Hindoo Amphitryon was a fellow of some renown, and here is his story.

A Hindoo, whose name, indeed, has not descended to us,--but he was the individual whom the Greeks stole, and called Amphitryon,--lived many years ago. He was remarkable for his gigantic strength and stature; and he not only found the former a good thing to possess, but he used it _like_ a giant. He had for the wife of his bosom a fair, but fragile, girl, who lay in his embrace, as she sang to him at sunset, “like Hebe in Hercules’ arms.” It was not often, however, that such passages of peace embellished the course of their daily life. The Hindoo was jealous, and his little wife was coquettish. The lady had smiles for flatterers; and her monster of a husband had a stick, which showered blows upon her when he detected her neglecting her household work. Cudgelling took its turn with caressing, as it did in the more modern, and consequently more vulgar, case of Captain Wattle and Miss Roe; and finally there was much more of the first than there was of the last. One summer eve, the husband, in a fit of frantic jealousy, assaulted his wife so ferociously, that he left her insensible on the threshold of their house, and threatened never again to keep up a _ménage_ with so incorrigible a partner.

A Hindoo deity, of an inferior order,--not the King of gods and men, as in the Grecian legend,--had witnessed the whole proceeding from his abiding place in a neighbouring cloud. He smiled as the husband disappeared; and, gradually descending in his little palace to the ground, he lightly leaped on to the firm set earth, gave a hurried glance at the unconscious and thickly-bruised beauty, and then, in testimony of his ecstatic delight, he clapped his hands, and commenced revolving on one leg, as D’Egville used to do, when Venua’s violin led the orchestra, and gave him strength.

The spirit, having subsided into repose, thought for a while, and speedily arrived at a resolution. It infused itself into a human body, which was found without difficulty, and it clothed the whole under the counterfeit presentment of the errant husband. These feats of transmutation were common among the eastern deities; and I take for granted that my readers are aware that Pythagoras himself--who is connected with Table Traits, on the subject of beans--was no other than Buddha Goroos, who slipped into a vacant body, and taught the metempsychosis to wondering Europe.

The wife of the Hindoo giant was something astonished, on recovering herself, to find that she was seated, without any sense of pain, on a bench in the little garden, with her apparent husband at her feet, pouring out protestations of love and assurances of fidelity. She accepted all, without questioning; for it was all too pleasant to be refused. A new life commenced. The married pair became the admiring theme of the village; and when a son was born to them, there ensued such showers of felicitations and flowers as had never fallen upon married lovers since the Hindoo world first started on its career, on the back of the self-supporting elephant. Their moon never ceased to shed honey; and this was flowing, sweetly and copiously as ever, when, one sultry noon, the vagrant husband returned home, and, confronting the counterfeit at an inner door, bitterly satirized the vanity of women who indulged in capricious tempers and Psyche glasses. In an instant, however, he was conscious that his other self was not a reflection, but only the cause of many that began crowding into the brain of the true man. The cool complacency of the counterfeit irritated the bewildered and legitimate husband, and an affray ensued, in which the mortal got all the blows, and his rival all the advantage. The wife was herself perplexed, but manifested a leaning towards the irresistible divinity. In vain did the gigantic original roar forth the tale of his wrongs, and claim his undoubted rights; and it was only during a lull in the storm that he heeded a suggestion made, to the effect, that all the parties should submit their case to the judgment of an inspired Brahmin.

This eminent individual speedily perceived that, of the double-man that stood before him, one was a dupe, and the other a deity,--something, at all events, above humanity. The question was, how to discover the divinity. After much cogitation, this was the judgment pronounced by the dusky Solomon: “Madam,” said he to the perplexed lady, “your husband was known as being the most robust man ever made out of the red earth, of which was composed the father of us all. Now, let these two litigants salute you on the lips; and we pronounce him to be the true man who comes off with the loudest report.” The trial took place forthwith in presence of the assembled multitude. The Indian mortal first approached the up-raised lips of his wife; and he performed the required feat with an echo that was as half a hundred culverins to the “pistol-shot” kiss recorded of Petruchio. The Judge and the people looked curiously to the defendant, as wondering how, on the pretty instrument before him, he could strike a note higher than his rival. The Indian god addressed him to what seemed a rose-bud wet with dew; and therewith ensued a sound as though all the artillery of the skies were saluting, too, in honour of the achievement. The multitude and the Brahmin looked, for all the world, as if they had lost their hearing; and it was calculated that the astounding din might have been heard by the slumbering tortoise below the antipodes. At length, the assembly hailed the deity as the undoubted Simon Pure, and looked towards the Brahmin for confirmation of their award; but the Brahmin merely remarked to them, with urbanity, that they were the sons and fathers of asses, and were unable to distinguish between the almost invisible seed which diets the bird of Paradise, and the gigantic palm of the garden of the gods, each leaf of which is of such extent that an earthly courser, at his utmost speed, could not traverse it in fifty millions of mortal-measured years. “Here is the true husband,” added the Judge, putting his hand upon the shoulder of the Indian, “who has done all that human being, in the particular vocation required, could do; and here,” added he, turning reverentially to the other, “is some supreme being, who has been pleased to amuse himself at the expense of his servants.”

The god smiled, and confessed to the excellence of the Judge’s perspicuity by revealing himself in his true, and somewhat operatic, form. He ascended the cloud, which appeared in waiting for him like an aërial cab, and, looking from over its side, laughingly bade the edified multitude farewell, adding, that he was the deity appointed to preside at tables that were not ungraced by the fair;--and, “if these have a cause for complaint, it is my privilege to avenge them according to my good pleasure.” The ladies thereupon flung flowers to him as he rose, and the husbands saluted his departure with rather faint cheers; but throughout India, while orthodoxy lasted, there never was a table spread, but the master thereat, prince or peasant, invoked the Hindoo deity to cast the beams of the sun of his gaiety upon the board. Heresy, however, in this matter, has crept in; and, if Hindoo feasts lack real brilliancy, it is because the sunlight of the god no longer beams from the eyes of the fair, who are no longer present sharers in the banquet. It is otherwise in Europe, whither, perhaps, the god came, and aped Jupiter, as well as Amphitryon, when he perplexed the household of Alcmena. He sits presiding at our feast, ensconced within a rose; from thence his smiles urge to enjoyment, and the finger on his lip to discretion; and every docile guest whispers _sub rosâ_, and acknowledges the present god.

It is said, in India, that this divinity was the one who gave men diet, but forgot digestion. It was like giving them philosophical lectures, without power to understand them; and the case is still common enough upon earth. These subjects demand brief notice, were it only by way of appendix to this prolegomenical chapter.

DIET AND DIGESTION.

“No digest of law’s like the law of digestion.”--MOORE.

Our good neighbours the French, or rather, the philosophers among them, have asserted that the perfecting of man and his species depends upon attention to diet and digestion; and, in a material point of view, they are not far wrong; and, indeed, in a non-material point of view, it may be said that the spirit, without judgment, is very likely to be exposed to indigestion; and perhaps ignorance complete is to be preferred to an ill-digested erudition. With diet and patience, Walpole thought all the diseases of man might be easily cured. Montesquieu, on the other hand, held that health purchased by rigorously watching over diet, was but a tedious disease. But Walpole was nearly correct, while Montesquieu was not very distant from the truth. Dieting, like other things, must be undertaken on common-sense principles; for, though there be multitudes of mad people in the world, society generally is not to be put upon the _régime_ of “Bedlam.”

We live, not by what we eat, but by what we digest; and what one man may digest, another would die of attempting. Rules on this subject are almost useless. Each man may soon learn the powers of his stomach, in health or disease, in this respect; and this ascertained, he has no more business to bring on indigestion than he has to get intoxicated or fall into debt. He who offends on these three points, deserves to forfeit stomach, head, and his electoral franchise!

Generally speaking, fat and spices resist the digestive power; and too much nutritious food is the next evil to too little. Good cookery, by developing flavour, increases the nutritiousness of food, which bad cookery would perhaps render indigestible. Hence a good cook rises to the dignity of “artist.” He may rank with the chemists, if not with the physicians.

Animal food, of mild quality, is more digestible than vegetable, and fresh meats are preferable to salted. In the latter the salt is a different composition from that which is taken at meals, and which is indispensable to health. Fish fills rather than feeds; but there are exceptions to this. Vegetables are accounted as doing little to maintain stamina; but there have been races and classes of men who have been heroes upon bread, fruit, and vegetables. The poor cannot live upon “curry,” it is true; but in England, with less drink and more vegetable food, they would be an improved race. Not that they could live like a Lazzaroni on maccaroni and the open air. Layard says the Bedouin owes his health and strength to his spare diet. But even a Bedouin swallows lumps of butter till he becomes bilious; and were he to live in England instead of the desert, he would not keep up his strength by living on the dishes which support him in Arabia Felix. The golden rule is “moderation and regularity.” He who transgresses the rule, will pay for it by present suffering and a “check” after Christmas.

A false hunger ought not to be soothed, nor a false thirst to be satisfied; for satisfaction here is only adding fuel to a fire that would otherwise go out. On the other hand, the bilious and sedentary man need not be afraid of beer; it is a better stomachic than wine. For him, and for all lords of that heritage of woe, a weak stomach, the common-sense system of cookery, as it is called, is most required. It is something between the hard crude system of the English, and the juice-extracting method of the French; with a leaning, however, towards the latter, (with whom it is common to reduce food to a condition of pulp,) but uniting with it so much of the English custom as allows the gelatinous matter to be retained, especially in the meats. “_Festina lente_,” is “_Latin de cuisine_,” for “Eat slowly,” and it is of first-rate value. He who does so, gives best chance for healthy chyle; and that wanting, I should like to know where the _post-prandial_ enjoyment would be. Without it, digestion is not; and when digestion is away, Death is always peering about to profit by his absence. “See to it!” as the Chinese “chop” says.

There are upwards of seventeen hundred works extant on the subject of diet and digestion. Sufferers may study the question till they are driven mad by doubt and dyspepsia, and difference of opinions among the doctors. Fordyce saw no use in the saliva, and Paris maintains that without it digestion is not. “_Quot homines, tot sententiæ_,” is as applicable here as in every other vexed question. But Paris’s book on Diet is the safest guide I know for a man who, being dyspeptic, wants to cure himself, or simply to discover the definement of his degree of suffering. On the other hand, every man may find comfort in the reflection, that with early hours, abundant exercise, generous diet, but not too much of it, and occupation,--without which a worse devil than the former enters on possession of the victim,--dyspepsia cannot assume a chronic form. It may be a casual visitor, but it will be the easiest thing possible to get rid of him. But philosophy has said as much from the beginning, and yet dyspepsia prevails and physicians ride in carriages. Exactly! and why? Because philosophers themselves, like the Stoic gentleman in Marmontel, after praising simplicity of living, sink to sleep, on heavy suppers and beds of down, with the suicidal remark, that “_Le Luxe est une jolie chose._”

We must neither act unreservedly on the _dictum_ of books, nor copy slavishly the examples of others, if we would have the digestion in a healthy condition. There is a self-monitor that may safely be consulted. Of his existence there can be no doubt; for every man who wakes with a headache most ungratefully blames that same monitory “self.”

If any class may fairly complain of others in this respect, rather than of themselves, it is the “babies.” The Rajpoots do not slay half so many of their infants out of pride, as we do by indiscreet dieting; or, to speak plainly, over-feeding. The New Zealand mother is not more foolish, who thrusts stones down the throat of her babe, in order to make him a stern and fearless warrior, and only mars him for a healthy man. And Christian matrons have been quite as savage without intending it. Brantome’s uncle, Chastargnerage, was no sooner weaned than, by the advice of a Neapolitan physician, he took gold, steel, and iron, (in powders,) mixed up with all he ate and drank. This regimen he followed until he was twelve years old, by which time (we are asked to believe) it had so strengthened him that he could stop a wild bull in full course. This diet, however, seems little likely to have produced such an effect. As soon might one expect that the Bolton ass, which chewed tobacco and took snuff, was made swift as a race-horse by so doing. I think that it is of Dean Nowell it is said, that he grew strong by drinking ale. He was the accidental inventor of bottled ale. He was out fishing with a bottle of the freshly-drawn beverage at his side, when intelligence reached him touching the peril his life was in, under Mary, which made him fly, after flinging away his rod, and thrusting his bottle of ale under the grass. When he could again safely resort to the same spot, he looked for his bottle, which, on being disturbed, drove out the cork like a pellet from a gun, and contained so creamy a fluid, that the Dean, noting the fact, and rejoicing therein, took care to be well provided with the same thenceforward. As Henry II. was the first King who acted as sewer, and placed the boar’s head on the table of his young son, just crowned, so Dean Nowell was the first church dignitary who laid the foundation of red noses, by bringing bottled ale to the notice of the clergy. There is an old tradition, that what this ale used to do for churchmen, cider used to effect for Africans.

As we have said, “moderation” is the first principle of digestion; and as, according to the Latin proverb, “water gives moderation,” it behoves us to look for a few minutes into the much praised, and little appreciated, _aqua pura_.

WATER.

A Kentucky man, who was lately at one of the great tables in an hotel in the States, where the bill of fare was in French, after sorely puzzling himself with descriptions which he could not comprehend, “_cotelettes à la Maintenon_” and “_œufs à la braise_;” exclaimed, “I shall go back to first principles: give me some roast beef!” So, after speaking of the birth of him, whose putative father has lent a name to liberal hosts, let us also fall back upon first principles, and contemplate the uses of water.

There is nothing in nature _more_ useful; but, commonly speaking, you can neither buy any thing with it, nor get any article for it in exchange. Adam Smith strikingly compares with it the uselessness and the value of a diamond: the latter has scarcely any value in use, but much that is valuable may be had in exchange for it. In the desert a cup full of water is worth one full of diamonds; that is, in certain emergencies. The diamond and the water illustrate the difference between value in use and value in exchange.

If water be not, according to Pindar and the legend over the Bath Pump-Room, the best of things, few things would attain to excellence without it. Greek philosophy was not wrong which made it the principle of life, and the popular belief scarcely erred in seeing in every stream, spring, and fountain a resident deity. Water was so reverenced by certain ancient nations, that they would never desecrate it by purifying themselves therewith! The ancient Persians and Cappadocians exemplified their devotion by personal dirtiness. In presence of the visible power of the stream, altars were raised, and adoration paid to the god whose existence was evidenced by such power. The Egyptians gave their divine river more than prayers, because their dependence on it was more absolute than that of other nations on their respective streams. The Nile, swelling beneficently, bestowed food, health, and therewith content on the Egyptians; and they, in return, flung gratefully into the stream corn, sugar, and fruit. When human sacrifices were made to rivers, it was probably because the river was recognised as giving life, and was worthy of being paid in kind. We may smile superciliously at this old reverence for the “liquid good,” but there was connected therewith much that we might profitably condescend to copy. Greece had her officers appointed to keep her streams pure. Had those officials exposed the people to drink such indescribable matter as we draw from the Thames, they would have been thrown into it by popular indignation. In Rome, Ancus Martius was long remembered, not for his victories, but for his care to supply the city with salubrious and sufficient water; and if people generally cursed Nero for his crimes, they acknowledged that he had at least not damaged the public aqueducts; and that in his reign ice-houses were first built, the contents of which enabled thousands to quaff the cool beverage which is so commendably spoken of by Aristotle.

The fountains were the ornaments of the public places, as the crystal _ampulla_, with its slender neck and its globular body, was of the sideboards of private houses in Rome. The common people drank to excess, both of hot water and cold: the former they drank in large measures;--this was in winter, and in taverns where they fed largely upon pork, and drank the water as a stimulant! The Emperor Claudius looked upon this regimen as an immoral indulgence, and he closed the taverns where proprietors injured the public stomach by such a diet. Some Romans were so particular as to boil the water they intended to drink, in vessels at their own table. They were like the epicures who never intrust the boiling of an egg to their own cooks. We may notice that Augustus employed it lavishly, both as a bather and drinker. The “faculty” were unanimous in recommending a similar use of it, and some of these gentlemen made considerable fortunes by the various methods of applying it. For instance, patients resorting to Charmis, to take cold baths in winter under his direction, were required to pay him a consulting fee of £800! He was the first “water-cure” Doctor that ever practised, and he realized a fortune such as his successors may aim at in vain.

Horace Walpole, forgetting what he had once before said, namely, that diet and patience formed the universal panacea, declared that his “great nostrum was the use of cold water, inwardly and outwardly, on all occasions, and that with disregard of precaution against catching cold. I have often,” he continues, “had the gout in my face and eyes, and instantly dip my head in a pail of cold water, which always cures it, and does not send it any where else.” And again, alluding to another use of water, he says sneeringly, “Whether Christianity will be laid aside I cannot say. As nothing of the spirit is left, the forms, I think, signify very little. Surely, it is not an age of morality and principle; does it import whether profligacy is baptized or not?”

With regard to the sanitary application of water, as noticed by Walpole, there can be no doubt but that diet and digestion proceed the more perfectly, as the ablution of the body is general and daily, and made with cold water. But discretion must be used; for there are conditions of the body which cannot endure cold bathing without palpitation of the heart following. In such case, tepid water should be used for a time, when the palpitations will soon cease, unless the heart be organically affected.

The same writer’s remarks on the Christian uses of water, remind me of what is said of some such uses in Weever’s “Funeral Monuments.” He cites the inscriptions that used to be placed over the holy water in ancient churches. Some deposed that the sprinkling of it drove away devils:--

“_Hujus aquæ tactus depellit dæmonis actus._”

Others promised a blessing, as, for example:--

“_Asperget vos Deus cum omnibus sanctis suis ad vitam æternam._”

Another implied, that six benefits arose from its use; namely,--

----“_Sex operantur aquâ benedictâ:
Cor mundat, accidiam (?) fugat, venalia tollit,
Auget opem; removetque hostem, phantasmata pellit._”

Homer, too, it will be recollected, speaks of the sound of water inspiring consolatory thoughts, in the passage where he describes one “suffering cruel wounds from a diseased heart, but he found a remedy; for, sitting down beneath a lofty rock, looking down upon the sea, he began to sing.”

The dormitories of many of the old convents were adorned with inscriptions recommendatory of personal cleanliness; but the inmates generally were more content with the theory than the practice: they were, in some degree, like the man at Bishop-Middleham, who died with the reputation of a water-drinker, but who really killed himself by secret drunkenness. He praised water in public, but drank brandy in private, though it was not till after death that his delinquency was discovered.

The use of water against the spells of witchcraft lingered longer in Scotland than elsewhere. The Strathdown Highlander even now, it is said, is not ashamed to drink “the water of the dead and living ford,” on New Year’s Day, as a charm to secure him from sorcery until the ensuing New Year.

St. Bernard, the Abbot, made application of water for another purpose. Butler says of him, that he _once_ happened to fix his eyes on the face of a woman; but immediately reflecting that this was a temptation, he ran to a pond, and leaped up to the neck into the water, which was then as cold as ice, to punish himself, and to vanquish the enemy!

There is a second incident connected with water, that will bear to be told as an illustration, at least, of old times. When Patricius was Bishop of Prusa, the Proconsul Julius resorted thither to the famous baths, and was restored to such vigorous health thereby, that he not only made sacrifice of thanksgiving to Esculapius and Health, but required the Bishop to follow his example. The Prelate declined, and the Proconsul ordered him to be thrown into a caldron of boiling water, by which he was no more affected than if he had been enjoying a bath of tepid rose-water. Whereupon he was taken out and beheaded. The power that kept the water cool did not interfere to blunt the axe.

We have seen the reverence paid by certain “ancients of old” to the supposed divinities whose crystal thrones were veiled beneath the waves. Men under a better dispensation have shown, perhaps, a worse superstition. Bede makes mention of a Monk who thought he would purify his sin-stained spirit by actual ablution. He had, the church-historian tells us, a solitary place of residence assigned him in the monastery, adjacent to a river: into the latter he was accustomed to plunge, by way of penance to his body. He went manfully to the bottom, and his mouth was no sooner again in upper air, than it was opened to give utterance to lusty prayer and praise. He would sometimes thus stand for hours, up to the neck, and uttering his orisons aloud. He was in full dress when this penance was performed, and, on coming from the stream, he let his wet, and sometimes frozen, garments dry upon his person. A Friar, once seeing him break the ice, in order that he might make his penitential plunge, expressed shiveringly his wonder at the feat: “It must be so _very_ cold,” said the Friar. “I have seen greater cold,” was the sole remark of the devotional diver. “Such austerity _I_ never beheld,” exclaimed another spectator. “_I_ have beheld far greater,” replied the Monk. “And thus,” adds the historian, as simply as any of them, “thus he forwarded the salvation of many by his words and example.”

Connected with a pious man of our own time, I may mention an incident touching water, which is rather remarkable:--the person to whom I allude is Bishop Gobat, of Jerusalem. He states, in his last Annual Letter, that he is building a school which will cost him about £600: the school is not yet finished; but the water used for mixing the mortar has already cost the enormous sum of £60. It is, in fact, a luxury which must be paid for. Where it is so dear, it were well if the people never were thirsty; and there were such people of old.

The late Vice-Chancellor of England, Sir Lancelot Shadwell, was as indefatigable a bather as the Monk noticed by Bede. Every morning throughout the year, during his residence at Barnes Elms, he might be seen wrestling joyously with the Thames. It is said that, on one occasion, a party, in urgent need of an injunction, after looking for the Judge in a hundred places where he was not to be found, at length took boat, and encountered him as he was swimming in the river. There he is said to have heard the case, listening to the details as the astonished applicants made them, and now and then performing a frolicsome “summersault,” when they paused for want of breath. The injunction was granted, it is said; after which the applicants left the Judge to continue his favourite aquatic sport by himself.

If the late amiable and able Vice-Chancellor was a water-lawyer, so was the late Archdeacon Singleton a water-divine. When tutor to the young Lords Percy, he, and the eldest of the sons of the then Duke of Northumberland,--Hugh, Earl Percy,--were expert swimmers, and often, by their achievements, excited the admiration of less daring venturers. The Archdeacon was accustomed to float away for miles from Sion, depending upon the tide to float him back again. At first, many a boatman looked inquiringly at the motionless body carrying on with the stream; but, when he was better known, his appearance thus excited no more surprise than if he had been in an outrigger, calmly taking a pull before the hour of dinner.

With respect to water-drinkers, they seem to have abounded among the good old Heathens, of whom so many stories are told that we are not called upon to believe.

Aristotle, who, like Dr. Macnish, wrote an “Anatomy of Drunkenness,” (Περὶ Mέθης,) states therein, that he knew, or had heard, of many people who never experienced what it was to be thirsty. Archonides, of Argos, is cited by him as a man who could eat salt beef for a week without caring to drink, therewith or thereafter. Mago, the Carthaginian, is famous for having twice crossed the Desert without having once tasted water, or any other beverage. The Iberians, wealthy and showy people as they were, were water-drinkers; and it was peculiar to some of the Sophists of Elis, that they lived upon nothing but water and dried figs. Their bodily strength, which was great, is said to have been the result of such diet; but, it is added, that the pores of their skin exuded any thing but a celestial ichor, and that, whenever they went to the baths, all the other bathers fled, holding their offended noses between their fingers! Matris, of Athens, lived all his life upon myrtle-berries and water; but, as nobody knows how long he _did_ live, it would be rather rash to imitate him in hopes of obtaining extension of existence. Lamprus, the musician, was a water-drinker, as were Polemon, the Academician, and Diocles, of Peparethus; but, as they were never famous for any thing else, they are hardly worth citing. It is different when we contrast Demosthenes with Demades. Demosthenes states, in his second Philippic, that he was a water-drinker; and Pytheas was right, when he bade the Athenians remark, that the sober demagogue was, like Dr. Young, in fact, constantly engaged in solemn Night Thoughts. “Not so your other demagogue, Demades,” said Pytheas; “_he_ is an unclean fellow, who is daily drunk, and who never comes into your assemblies but to exhibit his enormous paunch.” Such was the style of election speeches in Greece; and it has a smack of the hustings, and, indeed, of the market, too, in Covent Garden.

To turn from old to modern mythology, I may notice that water entered into the old sports of St. Distaff’s Day, or the morrow after Twelfth Day. It is thus alluded to by one whose “mind was jocund, but his life was chaste,”--the lyric Parson of Dean Priors:--

“Partly work and partly play
Ye must, on St. Distaff’s Day.
From the plough soon free your team,
Then come home and fother them.
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax, and fire the tow,
Scorch their plackets, but beware
That ye singe no maiden-hair.
Bring in pails of water then,
Let the maids bewash the men.
Give St. Distaff all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport ‘Good-night;’
And next morrow ev’ry one
To his own vocation.”

When Herrick wrote these lines, I do not know how it may have been at Dean Priors, but London was but indifferently supplied with water. But _now_ London is supplied with water from eight different sources. Five of them are on the north, or Middlesex, side of London, three on the Southwark and Surrey side. The first comprise the New River, at Islington; the East London, at Old Ford, on the Lea; the West Middlesex, on the Thames, at Brentford and Hammersmith; and the Chelsea and Grand Junction, on the same river, at Chelsea. The south side is entirely supplied from the Thames, by the Southwark, Lambeth, and Vauxhall Waterworks, whose names are descriptive of their locality.

The daily supply amounts to about 35,000,000 of gallons, of which more than a third is supplied by the New River Company. The original projector of this Company was Sir Hugh Myddelton, who proposed to supply the London conduits from the wells about Amwell and Ware. The project was completed in 1613, to the benefit of posterity and the ruin of the projector. The old hundred-pound shares are now worth ten times their original cost.

In 1682 the private houses of the metropolis were only supplied with fresh water twice a week. Mr. Cunningham, in his “Handbook of London,” informs us that the old sources of supply were the Wells, or Fleet River, Wallbrook and Langbourne Waters, Clement’s, Clerk’s, and Holy Well, Tyburn, and the River Lea. Tyburn first supplied the City in the year 1285, the Thames not being pressed into the service of the City conduits till 1568, when it supplied the conduit at Dowgate. There were people who stole water from the pipes then, as there are who steal gas now. “This yere,” (1479,) writes an old chronicler of London, quoted by Mr. Cunningham, “a wax-charndler in Flete Strete had bi craft perced a pipe of the condite withynne the ground, and so conveied the water into his selar; wherefore he was judged to ride thurgh the Citee with a condite upon his hedde.” The first engine which conveyed water into private houses, by leaden pipes, was erected at London Bridge, in 1582. The pipes were laid over the steeple of St. Magnus; and the engineer was Maurice, a Dutchman. Bulmer, an Englishman, erected a second engine, at Broken Wharf. Previous to 1656, the Strand and Covent Garden, though so near to the river, were only supplied by water-tankards, which were carried by those who sold the water, or by the apprentice, if there were one in the house, whose duty it was to fill the house-tankard at the conduit, or in the river. In the middle of the seventeenth century, Ford erected water-works on the Thames, in front of Somerset House; but the Queen of Charles II.--like the Princess Borghese, who pulled down a church next to her palace, because the incense turned her sick, and the organ made her head ache--ordered the works to be demolished, because they obstructed a clear view on the river. The inhabitants of the district depended upon their tankards and water-carriers, until the reign of William III., when the York-buildings Waterworks were erected. The frequently-occurring name of Conduit-street, or Conduit-court, indicates the whereabout of many of the old sources whence our forefathers drew their scanty supplies.

Water is not necessarily unhealthy, because of a little earthy matter in it; mineral, or animal, or vegetable matter held in it, by solution, or otherwise, renders it decidedly unwholesome. Rain water is the purest water, when it is to be had by its natural distillation in the open fields. When collected near towns, it should never be used without being previously boiled and strained.

The hardness of water is generally caused by the presence of sulphate of lime. Horses commonly refuse to drink hard water,--a water that can make neither good tea, nor good beer, and which frequently contains many salts. Soft water, which is a powerful solvent of all vegetable matters, is to be preferred for all domestic purposes. River water is seldom pure enough for drinking. Where purest, it has lost its carbonic acid from long exposure; and in the neighbourhood of cities it is often a slow poison, and nothing more, scarcely to be rescued from the name by the process of filtration. London is still supplied, at a very costly price, with water which is “offensive to the sight, disgusting to the imagination, and destructive to the health.” Thames water, as at present flowing into our houses, is at once the jackal and aide-de-camp of cholera. People are apt to praise it, as being the water from which is made the purest porter in the world; but it is a well-known fact, that the great London brewers never employ it for that purpose.

The more a spring is drawn from, the softer the water will become; hence old wells furnish a purer water than those which are more recent; but a well of soft water is sensibly hardened by a coating of bricks. To obviate this, the bricks should be coated with cement. Snow water deserves a better reputation than it has acquired. Lake water is fitted only for the commonest household detergent purposes. But the salubrity of water is converted into poison by the conveyances which bring it almost to our lips; and we have not yet adopted in full the recommendation of Vitruvius and Columella to use pipes of earthenware, as being not only cheaper, but more durable and more wholesome, than lead. We still convey away refuse water in earthenware, and bring fresh water into our houses in lead! The noted choleraic colic of Amsterdam, in the last century, was entirely caused by the action of vegetable matter in the water-pipes.

Filtration produces no good effect upon hard water. The sulphate of lime, and still more the super-carbonate of lime, are only to be destroyed by boiling. Boiled water, cooled, and agitated in contact with the atmosphere, before use, is a safe and not an unpleasant beverage. It is essential that the water be boiling when “toast and water” is the beverage to be taken.

Water, doubtless, is the natural drink of man--in a natural state. It is the only liquid which truly appeases thirst; and a small quantity is sufficient for that effect. The other liquids are, for the most part, palliatives merely. If man had kept to water, the saying would not be applicable to him, that “he is the only animal privileged to drink without being thirsty.” But, then, where would the medical profession have been?

But he does well who, at all events, commences the day with water and prayer. With such an one we go hand in hand, not only in that service, but, as now, to Breakfast.

BREAKFAST.

Swift lent dignity to this repast, and to laundresses partaking of it, when he said, in illustration of modern Epicureanism, that “the world must be encompassed before a washerwoman can sit down to breakfast.”

Franklin, who made a “morality” of every sentiment, and put opinions into dramatical action, has a passage in some one of his Essays, in which he says, that “Disorder breakfasts with Plenty, dines with Poverty, sups with Misery, and sleeps with Death.” It is an unpleasant division of the day, but it is truly described, as far as it goes. On the other hand, it is not to be concluded that Disorder is the favourite guest of Abundance; and I do not know any one who has described a plentiful breakfast, with regularity presiding, better than another essayist, though one of a less matter-of-fact quality than Franklin,--I mean Leigh Hunt. In the “Indicator” he invites us to a “Breakfast in Cold Weather.” “Here it is,” he says, “ready laid. _Imprimis_, tea and coffee; secondly, dry toast; thirdly, butter; fourthly, eggs; fifthly, ham; sixthly, something potted; seventhly, bread, salt, mustard, knives, forks, &c. One of the first things that belong to a breakfast, is a good fire. There is a delightful mixture of the lively and the snug, in coming down to one’s breakfast-room of a cold morning, and seeing every thing prepared for us,--a blazing grate, a clean table-cloth and tea-things; the newly-washed faces and combed heads of a set of good-humoured urchins; and the sole empty chair, at its accustomed corner, ready for occupation. When we lived alone,” he adds, “we could not help reading at meals; and it is certainly a delicious thing to resume an entertaining book, at a particularly interesting passage, with a hot cup of tea at one’s elbow, and a piece of buttered toast in one’s hand. The first look at the page, accompanied by a co-existent bite of the toast, comes under the head of ‘intensities.’” Under the head of “&c.” in the above list, I should be disposed to include “sunshine;” for sunshine in a breakfast-room in winter, is almost as glorious a thing as the fire itself. It is a positive tonic; it cheers the spirits, strengthens the body, and promotes digestion. As for breakfast in hot weather, all well-disposed persons who have gardens take that meal, of course, in “the arbour,” and amid flowers. Breakfasts _al-fresco_ are all the more intensely enjoyed, because so few may be discussed in the open air in a country whose summer consists of “three hot days and a thunder-storm;” and in a climate wherein, according to Boerhaave, people should not leave off their winter clothing till Midsummer-Day, resuming the same the next morning when they are dressing for breakfast! Walpole and Boerhaave are right; our summers do sometimes set in with extraordinary severity.

The breakfast of a Greek soldier, taken at dawn of day, required a strong head to bear it. It consisted of bread soaked in wine. If Princes were in the habit of so breaking their fast, we hardly need wonder at the denunciation in Ecclesiastes against those who eat in the morning. The Greek patricians sat daily down to but one solid meal. Soldiers and plebeians had less controllable appetites, and these could not be appeased with less than two meals a day. They were accounted peculiarly coarse people who consumed three. The Romans were, in this respect, similar to the Greeks. Fashionable people ate little or nothing before the hour when they compensated for a long fast by a daily meal, where they fed hugely. A simple breakfast, as soon as they awoke, of “bread and cheese,” has a very unclassical sound; but good authority assures us, that it was a custom duly honoured with much observance. Not of such light fare, however, was the breakfast of Galba. Suetonius says that the old Emperor used to cry for his morning repast long before day-break. This was in winter time. He took the meal in bed, and was probably induced to do so by indisposition; for he was a huge, ogre-like supper-eater,--eating much, leaving more, and ordering the remains to be divided among the attendants, who duly, rather than dignifiedly, scrambled for the same.

Modern epicures would hardly approve of some of the dishes half-consumed by the hungry Galba at breakfast; but potentates of our own days have made their first meal upon very questionable matter.

When Clapperton, the African traveller, breakfasted with the Sultan of Baussa, which is a collection of straggling villages on the banks of the Quorra, among the delicacies presented were a large grilled water-rat, and alligators’ eggs, fried or stewed. The company were much amazed at the singularity of taste which prompted the stranger to choose fish and rice in preference to those savoury viands. The Prince, who gave this public breakfast in honour of a foreign commoner, was disgusted at the fastidious super-delicacy of his guest. In the last century, our commoners used to give similar entertainments in honour of Princes.

“Ælia Lælia” Chudleigh, as Walpole calls the famous lady who was still more famous as Duchess of Kingston, gave splendidly untidy entertainments of this sort in a splendidly untidy mansion. Her suppers will be found noticed in another page. In 1763, she gave a concert and vast cold collation, or “breakfast,” in honour of Prince Edward’s birthday. The _scene_ is admirably painted by Walpole. “The house is not fine, nor in good taste, but loaded with finery. Execrable varnished pictures, chests, cabinets, commodes, tables, stands, boxes, riding on one another’s backs, and loaded with terrenes, figures, filligrees, and every thing upon earth! Every favour she has bestowed is registered by a bit of Dresden China. There is a large case full of enamels, eggs, ambers, lapis-lazuli, cameos, tooth-pick cases, and all kinds of trinkets, things that she told me were her playthings. Another cupboard full of the finest japan, and candlesticks, and vases of rock-crystal, ready to be thrown down in every corner. But of all curiosities are the conveniencies in every bed-chamber; great mahogany projections, with brass handles, cocks, &c. I could not help saying it was the loosest family I ever saw.”

There was a philosopher of the same century, at whom even Walpole dared not have sneered. I allude to Dr. Black, whom Lavoisier called “the Nestor of the Chemical Revolution.” Dr. Black was famous for the frugality of his breakfasts, and for the singularity of his death, when seated at that repast. His usual fare was a little bread, a few prunes, and a measured quantity of milk and water. One morning in November, 1799, he was seated at this modest meal. His cup was in his hand, when the Inevitable Angel beckoned to him, and the Christian philosopher calmly obeyed. He placed the cup on his knees, “which were joined together, and kept it steady with his hand, in the manner of a person perfectly at his ease; and in this attitude he expired, without a drop being spilt, or a feature in his countenance changed, as if an experiment had been required, to show to his friends the facility with which he departed.” There was neither convulsion, shock, nor stupor, we are told, to announce or retard the approach of death. This was a more becoming end than that of another chemist, the younger Berthollet,--although in the latter there was something heroical, too. He had taken his last breakfast, when he calmly proceeded to a sacrifice which he made to the interests of science. He destroyed his life by enclosing himself in an atmosphere of carbonic acid. There he began registering all the successive feelings he experienced, which were such as would have been occasioned by a narcotic;--“a pause, and then an almost illegible word occurred. It is presumed that the pen dropped from his hand, and he was no more.”