Chapter VII (4)

The saints of our puritan days were great favourers of public fasts; but these fasts were less numerous after they had consolidated their power, than before. “In the beginning of the wars,” says Foulis, in his “History of the wicked Plots of the pretended Saints,” “a public monthly fast was appointed for the last Wednesday of every month, but no sooner had they got the king upon the scaffold, and the nation fully secured to the Rump interest, but they thought it needless to abuse and gall the people with a multitude of prayers and sermons,” and so, by a particular act of their worships (April 23, 1649), nulled the proclamation for the observation of the former; all which verifieth the old verses:--

“‘The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be.
The devil was well, the devil a monk was he.’”

George Fox, the father of the Quakers, remarks in his Journal, of the Puritans and their fasts:--“Both in the time of the Long Parliament, and of the Protector, so called, and of the Committee of Safety, when they proclaimed fasts, they were commonly like Jezebels, and there was some mischief to be done.” Taylor, the Water-poet, compares their fasts to hidden feasts. “They were like the holy maid,” he says, “that enjoined herself to abstain four days from any meat whatsoever; and being locked close up in a room, she had nothing but her two books to feed upon; but the two books were two painted boxes, made in the form of great Bibles, with clasps and bosses, the inside not having one word of God in them; but the one was filled with sweetmeats, the other with wine; upon which this devout votary did fast with zealous meditation, eating up the contents of one book, and drinking as contentedly the other.” Dr. South, in his Sermons, is equally severe. He observes that “their fasts usually lasted from seven in the morning till seven at night; the pulpit was always the emptiest thing in the church; and there never was such a fast kept by them, but their hearers had cause to begin a thanksgiving as soon as they had done.” Butler, in his Hudibras, hints that the work of fasting was to be accounted to the faster, righteousness:--

“For ’tis not now who’s stout and bold,
But who bears hunger best, and cold.
And he’s approved the most deserving,
Who longest can hold out at starving.”

The fasting of the civilians, however, was made to turn to the benefit of the military gentlemen; and, in March, 1644, an ordinance was passed for the contribution of one meal a week towards the charge of the army. There was by far a more considerable liberality of spirit among some of the clergy of the time of Louis XIV. than in the Puritan authorities, inasmuch as they permitted others to follow clerical example rather than precept. The celebrated preacher, Father Feuillot, for instance, stood by while “Monsieur” was enjoying an uncanonical collation in the middle of Lent. His Highness held up a _macaron_, and remarked, “This is not breaking fast, is it?” “Nay,” said Feuillot, “you may eat a calf, if you will only act like a Christian.” I am afraid that we had not improved at home, in the last century. On one of the fasts of that period, Walpole comments after his usual gay fashion. “Between the French and the earthquakes,” he says, in 1756, “you have no notion how good we are grown; nobody makes a suit of clothes now but of sackcloth, turned up with ashes. The fast was kept so devoutly, that Dick Edgecumbe, finding a very lean hazard at White’s, said with a sigh, ‘Lord! how the times are degenerated! Formerly, a fast would have brought everybody hither; now it keeps everybody away!’ A few nights before, two men were walking up the Strand, one said to t’other, ‘Look how red the sky is! Well, thank God, there is to be no masquerade!’”

An ex-Capuchin has revealed some of the mysteries of the house of which he was lately a member, and by this it would appear that the Friars of the nineteenth century are as little for slender diet as the fine gentlemen of the eighteenth. “These Capuchins,” he says, “of squalid appearance, clothed in serge, with shaven heads and bare feet, presenting the very type of humility and self-renunciation, enjoy the luxuries of life with a prodigality unknown to you. The poor friars have, with one exception, no enjoyment of the things of this world, their only worldly comfort is good cheer. The friars have three carnivals in the year, of two or three weeks’ duration each. These are the only periods at which they can recruit their wasted strength, to enable them to resist the mortifications of the rest of the year. During these few weeks they have seven courses served at dinner, all substantial and choice dishes, the most dainty morsels that can be provided. At supper they have five courses. By that hour, in spite of their plentiful dinner, they have regained their appetites; and their digestion is again most active. These courses are as substantial as those of the dinner, and are despatched with equal facility by these men of iron frame and tranquil conscience.... _Lent_ is arrived! Well, you must fast, you must mortify the flesh, but you must not die of inanition. A good table is necessary, or you will suffer too much from contrast with the past few weeks. You need double the supply that the secular orders do when they fast, for your digestion is twice as active as theirs. Supper is now a sadly scanty meal; it consists simply of fish, bread, wine, and fruit. A miserable dish! not miserable as to quantity or quality, but because it is the solitary dish during the forty days of Lent, always excepting bread and wine _ad libitum_. Fortunately, the friars are wise and provident; the slender supper is foreseen and provided against at dinner, which consists of four dishes. The bottle of good wine is valuable now, or they would be overcome with weakness.” Such is the testimony of a living witness, who pledges his reputation for the truth of his depositions.

I do not know that there is much that is exaggerated in this, for from M. Saurin we hear that, in France, well-to-do priests mortify the flesh on maigre days by very pretty eating. The bill of fare of these saintly men has been known to include soup _au coulis d’écrevisse_, salmon trout, an omelette _au Thon_, that would have called a dead _gastronome_ to life; a salad, the very smell of which seemed to give eternal youth; Semonal cheese, fruit, confectionary, a light wine, and a cup of coffee. By such self-denial is heaven gained by modern saints, in orders; having fair fortunes, and looks with the same characteristic.

The Dominicans of Italy are in no degree behind their brethren in France. The “late prior and visitor of the order,” who recently published his dealings with the Inquisition, thus describes his ancient brethren. “They do nothing,” he says, “which they are bound to do by their rules, if these are opposed to their inclinations. They profess never to eat meat in the refectory, or room for their common meals; but there is another room near it, which they call by another name, where they eat meat constantly. On Good Friday, they are commanded by their rules to eat bread and drink water. At the dinner hour they all go together into the refectory, to eat bread and drink water, but having done so for the sake of appearance, they go one after another into another room, where a good dinner is prepared for them all. I do not blame them for enjoying it; but I blame them for feigning an abstinence which none of them intend to keep.” These Dominicans, honest fellows! are more hungry than the gods of the old régime of whom it is said,--

“The Gods require the thighs
Of beeves for sacrifice;
Which roasted, we the steam
Must sacrifice to them,
Who, though they do not eat,
Yet love the smell of meat.”

But our poor friend the monk has witnesses in his favour, as well as opposed to him. Some men call him a living mummy swathed in faith. Another says he is “a moral gladiator who wrestles with his passions, and either stifles them or is devoured by them.” A third, describes him picturesquely as a sea-worthy vessel moored in a stagnant dock; and a fourth dismisses him contemptuously as a coward who won’t fight. Even allowing him to be all these, it does not follow that he is to be deprived of his dinner. If _he_ pays homage with his body to the saints, he has earned what has been called the mind’s daily homage to the body. Dinner should be the peculiar privilege of the monk, for it is as _he_ is, in some sense, “the open friend of poverty, the secret foe of riches” and if dinner be “the breakfast of the poor and the supper of the rich,” it is doubly due to the monk, who can claim it by either title. And it must not be supposed that they do not know how to enjoy pleasure like sensible men. The Abbé of St. Sulpice, a Bernardine monastery in the south of France, once invited a party of merry and musical gentlemen from the neighbouring town to come up to the monastery, and give the monks a treat of good music on the _fête_ day of their patron saint. A joyous company ascended at early dawn to the monastery; the most remarkable incident connected with which is, that it is seated at the edge of a pine forest, from which a hurricane swept down, in one night, thirty-seven thousand trees. The visitors were received by the cellarer, the abbé not being yet risen, who conducted them to the refectory, where they found awaiting them a pâté as big as a church; flanked on the north by a quarter of cold veal; on the south by a monster ham; on the east by a monumental pile of butter; and on the west by a bushel of artichokes _à la poivrade_. All the necessary adjuncts were at hand; and among others, a party of lay brethren ready to wait upon the visitors, and very much astonished to find themselves out of bed at so early an hour. An array of a hundred bottles of wine bespoke the fathers’ idea of good cheer; and the cellarer, having bidden them fall-to and welcome, deplored his inability to join them, not having yet said mass,--and he then took his leave to go and sing “matins.”

The breakfast was done ample justice to; after which the visitors retired to take a short repose, subsequently repairing to the church, where they performed a musical service with the usual zeal and energy of amateurs, and received modestly the showers of thanks that descended upon them in return.

Monks and musicians then sat down to a dinner,--ample, admirably cooked, excellently served, and thoroughly enjoyed. The abundance that marked it may be judged of by the fact, that at the second course there were not less than fifteen dishes of roasted meats. The dessert would have made the eyes of a queen sparkle; the liqueurs were choice, and the coffee redolent of Araby the Blest. The enjoyment was long and perfect; and by the end of the repast, there was not man or monk present who was not in charity with all the world. The “pious, glorious, and immortal memory” of St. Bernard was not forgotten among the toasts.

And then came vespers and more amateur music,--probably more vigorously performed than in the morning. And after vespers there was a division of pleasures: some took to quiet games at cards, some chose a ramble in the wood, and a few looked in again upon their friend the cellarer. As night came on, all again drew together, but the discreet abbot retired, willing to allow the brethren full liberty on a festival which only came “once a year.” And to do the brothers justice, they began to make a night of it as soon as the superior had disappeared. Jokes and laughter and winged words flew about like wildfire, and the exercise got thereby sharpened the general appetite for supper,--a repast which was discussed with a vivacity as if the guests had been fasting up to that very hour. Wit and wine, and wisdom and folly, were all mingled together; and the oldest of the fathers present, with a flush on the cheek and a light in the eye, joined _chorus_ in table songs that were _not_ sung to the tune of _Nunc dimittis_. It was when the fun was flying most fast and furious, that a voice exclaimed, “Brother cellarer, where is your official dish?” “True!” answered that reverend individual; “I am not cellarer for nothing;”--and therewith he disappeared, but speedily returned accompanied by three servitors, bearing piles of buttered toast and bowls of what worldly men would have called “punch.” If the fun had waxed fast before, it grew fiery now, and fervour for the patron saint glowed at the very fiercest heat that punch could give it. In the midst of it all, the hour of midnight was solemnly tolled out by the convent bell, and the revellers, reverend and laic, swang merrily to bed, satisfied with the day well spent in honour of St. Bernard.

I have now spoken of the Dominicans, Capuchins, and Bernardins. The Franciscans are a not less lively fraternity. When the author of Eöthen was at the Franciscan Monastery in Damascus, he asked one of the monks to tell what places were best worth seeing, in reference to their association with St. Paul. “There is nothing in all Damascus,” said the good man, “half so well worth seeing as our cellars;” and forthwith he invited the stranger to “go and admire the long range of liquid treasures that he and his brethren had laid up for themselves upon earth.” And, adds the author, “these I soon found were not as the treasures of the miser, that lie in unprofitable disuse; for day by day, and hour by hour, the golden juice ascended from the dark recesses of the cellar to the uppermost brains of the friars, dear old fellows! In the midst of that solemn land, their Christian laughter rang loudly and merrily. Their eyes kept flashing with joyous bonfires, and their heavy woollen petticoats could no more weigh down the springiness of their paces, than the filmy gauze of a _danseuse_ can cloy her bounding step.”

Richard the First, as worthless a human being as ever lived, bankrupt in every virtue save that of brute courage, in making legacy of his vices, said he would bequeath gluttony to the priests. It was rather a compliment than otherwise, for the inference was, that they lacked what he was willing to surrender, when he could no longer enjoy it. St. Augustin settled this vexed question as to what was “good living,” when he said, that “the great fast was abstinence from vice.” And in the true spirit of St. Augustin’s prose, rings the rich rhyme in Herrick’s Noble Numbers. “Is this,” he says,

“Is this a fast, to keep
The larder leane
And cleane
From fat of veales and sheep?

“Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?

“Is it to faste an houre?
Or ragged to go,
Or show
A downcast look, and soure?

“No; ’tis a fast, to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat,
And meat,
Unto the hungry soule.

“It is to fast from strife,
From old debate,
And hate;
To circumcise thy life.

“To show a heart grief-rent,
To starve thy sin,
Not bin:
And that’s to keep thy Lent.”

This is better philosophy than that given on a similar subject by Montesquieu, who only recommends moderation on the ground that it lengthens the term of enjoyment. “I call moderation,” says Pythagoras, “all that does not engender pain;” and by this maxim of the Hellenized Hindoo, Buddha Ghooros, the saints both of the desert and the dining-room may, perhaps, in their several ways be condemned.

In treating of the diet of more modern saints than those of the days of martyrdom, I might have noticed the fact, that in not very remote times, the parsonage-house at Langdale, in Westmoreland, was licensed as an ale-house, the living being too poor to allow the incumbent to make anything like one upon it for himself. The ale-cask became to the priest, what the fruit of the amrite tree was to the Tibetians--the spring of life. This Westmoreland ale was accounted a great strengthener, but so have many less likely things. But enough of the “saints,” good men and true the majority of them, earning their right to enjoy the rich blessings of God, by fairer means, perhaps, than many of their censurers. I know no set of men so well to contrast with the saints, as the “Cæsars,” and we have yet time before supper to attend that august company to table.

THE CÆSARS AT TABLE.

It is a well-ascertained truth, that the Cæsars at table by no means generally conducted themselves as though they were under the influence of a Roman Chesterfield, as regarded their behaviour; or a Roman Abernethy, as regarded their moderation. Perhaps the great Julius was as much of a gentleman in both the above respects as any of his imperial successors; and even he could reform the calendar with far more ease than he could reform himself.

When he was commanding in the Roman provinces, beyond the Italian frontier, he kept two distinct tables. At one sat his inferior officers and the Greeks who were in his service. The latter do not appear to have expressed any discontent at not ranking with their Roman comrades. At the other table sat none but Romans of high state, with such native guests of quality as Cæsar chose to invite to meet them. He would watch his servants as sharply as he did the enemy; and on one occasion, having observed that his baker had put down to his guests a coarser bread than that which he had served to Cæsar, he sent the knave to prison, there to learn better manners.

Cæsar was as sober as Sir Charles Napier, who used to sign himself “Governor of Scinde, because I was always a sober man.” Cato said of Julius, that he was the only sober man who had ever attempted to subvert a government; “a cutting sarcasm on all preceding patriots.” As for sauces, the Duke of Wellington did not inspire Francatelli with more despair upon that head, than Cæsar did _his_ cook. It was immaterial to him whether he had sauce to his meat, or not; and as to the quality, he never concerned himself about it. He ate, thankfully perhaps, but thoughtlessly, certainly. His politeness was sometimes ridiculously excessive, as when he ate up the ointment which had been served instead of sauce, at a table where he was a guest, and where he was courteously resolved to find everything excellent. But although the great Julius was, according to Cato, the only man who came sober to the subversion of his country, he had some unsoberly habits about him. Thus, when invited to a feast, he used to whet his appetite by taking an emetic. This is attested by Cicero, who says, in his letters to Atticus, (lib. xiii. p. 52,) “Unctus est; accubuit; ἐμετικήν agebat. Itaque edit et bibit ἀδεῶς et jucunde.” Suetonius agrees with Cato, that Cæsar was moderate with regard to wine:--“Vini parcissimum ne quidem inimici negaverunt.”

It is singular that a man who cared so little as he was reported to have done for his stomach, should have cared so much about the outside of his head. He could eat pomatum, and yet be ashamed of the baldness which a proper application of the unguent might perhaps have cured.

Augustus Cæsar, who visited prisoners, like Howard, and cut off heads like an Algerine Dey, was moderate in his cups, and endeavoured to make the people so. When the latter once complained that wine was not only dear, but scarce, he gravely proclaimed that his son-in-law Agrippa had been looking to the aqueducts, and there was no fear of any one dying of thirst.

There were seasons, however, when he could be more than imperially extravagant. Witness the little supper he gave to chosen guests, all of whom attended in the attire of gods and goddesses; and at which feast he presided in the character of Apollo. The wits of the day, who were not invited, denounced this supper as an orgy at which decent people would not have been present, even if asked. Such stupendous iniquity was said there to have been enacted, that the real gods who had at first looked laughingly down from Olympus, withdrew one by one behind their respective clouds. Even Jove himself, who sat gazing longest, at length hurried away from the sight of men, who were greater beasts than the privileged gods!

Like some of the extravagant and unclean banquets at Versailles, this entertainment was given when there was a famine in the city. On the following day, the people exclaimed in the streets, “It is the gods who have devoured the food.” The less fearful than these raised an altar to Augustus Phœbus, and there paid mock worship to the Emperor, under the title of Apollo the Tormentor.

It was not every one that deemed himself entitled, that could find access to the table of Cæsar Augustus. He was extremely nice with regard to his associates, but he was not so nice with respect to keeping his guests waiting for his company. It was the maxim of Sir Joshua Reynolds, that it was far less courteous on principle to allow hungry guests to be kept from table out of respect to one man, than it was to go to dinner without him. So also Augustus thought that the many should not be made to wait for one; and, accordingly, he frequently did not appear at table till the repast was half over; and sometimes departed even then, after tasting of from three to half-a-dozen dishes, before it was concluded.

He was dignified and condescending, enjoyed the jokes of those who were bold enough to make them, and encouraged the reserved to be bold and jocund too. When jests lacked from either of those parties, the master of the Roman world then laughed, as he sipped his moderate draught, at the quips and cranks of the hired jesters, whose office it was to be cheerful when the guests grew dull.

It has come down to us that he was a lover of brown bread, small fish, green cheese and green figs. He was so far intemperate that he would never let his appetite tarry till meal-time. He ate when he was hungry, and perhaps he was right. And yet it was but an unedifying sight to see him passing in his chariot through the public streets, returning the greetings of the people with one hand full of bread, the other full of dates, and his almost sacred mouth full of both. He was, in fact, wayward in his attentions to his appetite, and would occasionally fast till sunset if the caprice took him. As to what is said of him that he sometimes rose from the most sumptuous banquets, leaving the viands untouched,--this was perhaps because the edge of his appetite had been altogether destroyed by brown bread and indigestible fruit.

In the day-time he quenched his thirst by eating of bread dipped in water, by drinking water itself, or by taking a slice of cucumber, lettuce, or unripe apple. His moderation in drinking, when he _did_ take up the goblet at the evening repast, is much spoken of, but as we hear more of the quantity than of the strength of what he drank, it is difficult to decide upon this point. Suetonius admiringly records that “he never exceeded a quart for his share, or if he did, he was sure to throw it up again.” This is but equivocal praise after all. He was a very great man, no doubt, but, demi-god as he almost was, he spelt after the “cacological” fashion of Lord Duberly; and he was more afraid of lying awake in the dark than any little baron or squire in the nurseries of Belgravia and the adjacent squares.

Tiberius, like his predecessor, treated his soldiers occasionally like schoolboys, and when they displeased him, he used to put them on a regimen of barley. Tiberius himself was not a profuse eater; he was rather moderate than otherwise, and when gastronomic extravagancy had reached a high pitch in Rome, he used to dine in public, like the kings of France, but, unlike them, upon cold meat, as a reproof to the luxury of the times. He was not, however, at all moderate in his cups, and the Roman wits, who, like those of Paris, used to make merry epigrams on the worst of their woes, punningly transformed his names of Tiberius Claudius Nero, into _Biberius Caldius Mero_. He had a reverence too for great draughts, and he once raised a common fellow to the office of quæstor, simply because he could drink off a measure of three pints of wine without drawing breath. Most of the Cæsars must have been very unsatisfactory people to dine with, but none more so than Tiberius, who loved discussion, but if he found himself worsted in it, he invariably ordered his opponent to retire--and commit suicide. A hot bath and a vein or two opened soon disposed of an inconvenient adversary. He used to puzzle his guests with all sorts of strange questions, such as would puzzle even the editor of _Notes and Queries_ to answer. One of these interrogatory puzzles was “the name of the song chanted by the Syrens.” He would not speak the fashionable Greek at table, but conversed in Latin; and his favourite feat at dessert was to run his forefinger through a hard green apple.

Caligula must have been a most unpleasant person to dine with. He entertained himself and his guests with the sight of men tortured on the rack, and he got up little private executions on those occasions to enliven the scene. We read of Her Majesty’s private concerts, and how “Mrs. Anderson” presided at the piano. But the Romans only heard of their Emperor’s killing fun to frighten his guests with, and how his Divinity’s private headsman, Niger Barbatus, performed, as usual, with his well-known dexterity. His frolics were really of a frightful character. It was after a banquet, when the capital jest of slaying had failed to make him as merry as usual, that he rushed to the sacrificial altar, attired in the dress of a victim-killer, that is, with a linen apron for his sole costume. He seized the mallet as though he were about to slay the appointed victim, but he turned suddenly round on the resident official and butchered him instead. And thereat, all who had witnessed the frolicsome deed of their master, declared that “’Fore Jove, ’twas a more capital joke than the last!” His answer to the Consuls who ventured to ask the cause of a sudden burst of laughter in which he indulged at a crowded feast, is well known; “I laugh to think,” said the amiable creature, “that with one wave of my hand I can sweep all your stupid heads off!” His method of loving was equally characteristic. He would fling his terrible arm round the fair neck he professed to admire, and express his delight that he could cut it off when he pleased. There was the brilliant Cesonia; “I cannot tell,” said her imperial lover at a feast, “why it is that I am so fond of that girl. I’ll have her put on the rack for a quarter of an hour, that she may be compelled to tell me the reason.” Blue Beard was the mildest of Quaker gentlemen compared with this Caligula. A lady might as well have been wooed by a boa constrictor.

Claudius Cæsar has hardly had justice done him, as regards his general character, but as my office is only to show how he looked at table, I must be satisfied with making the remark, and pass on to Cæsar at meat. He was no hero, undoubtedly, for he contemplated suicide, for no better reason than having a pain in his stomach after a repast. In this, however, he did not show less courage than Zeno, the father of the Stoics, who having bruised his finger by a fall, went home and hung himself.

He was largely hospitable, and sometimes entertained six hundred guests at a time. He liked on these occasions to see his own children and those of the nobility seated, according to the ancient fashion, at the lower end of the table. It is to be hoped that they were out of ear-shot of what was being said at the upper end. The jokes were sometimes pleasant enough in their way. Thus a Roman nobleman having carried home with him a gold plate from the imperial table, was gently reminded of his theft when, on the next occasion of dining with Claudius, he saw a reproachfully vulgar earthenware platter put down before him.

He was a man of infinite capacity, was the divine Claudius,--that is, in gastronomic matters. He was ever ready to devour, and always did so greedily. He has been known to have suddenly jumped down from his seat in the forum, allured by the smell of roast meat issuing from the priest’s table, in the adjacent temple of Mars. And he would sit down with the reverend gentleman, without waiting for an invitation. It must have surely made the common-place spectators of the feat broadly smile, just as if the twelve judges in Westminster Hall were to leap from their benches, and racing across the churchyard, pour into the first house in the cloisters where the dinner-bell was ringing loudest, and the prandial odour was most savoury.

He ate like Baal, and drank like the beast in Fortunatus. He did both to repletion; but his attendants would then tickle his throat with a feather, and so, by exonerating his stomach, enable the imperial animal to eat and drink again. He contemplated making a decree for the benefit of guests at table, which was of a Rabelaisian indelicacy, and which probably never presented itself to the minds of any other men but Claudius and the Curé of Meudon.

Caligula had more affection for his horse than for anything human. He fed him on gilded oats, and the animal was not a more beastly consul than many who were appointed to that high office. The emperor’s dinner parties must have presented a strange aspect, when the obsequious senators stood, napkin in hand, to wait upon the guests. Fancy the peers of all politics, and the commons of every shade of opinion, all ranged behind the dinner-table at Windsor Castle, in the professional uniform of dingy white waistcoats and napless black coats, with their thumbs duly doubled up in napkins, and all offering anxious service, and “dindon à la daube” to our Sovereign Lady and her guests,--fancy this, I say, and you will have the very remotest idea possible of what the sight was like when the senators changed the plates of Cæsar. The personages and their qualities are all different, but the strangeness of one spectacle could only be matched by that of the other.

Nero (who found sport in sitting in an upper gallery at the theatre, and flinging down nuts upon the bald head of the prætor below) was a very common-place individual at table, but he assembled guests about him who were ever ready to consume his good things and applaud his good sayings. Galba, his successor, was at once gouty and gluttonous. He commenced eating at early dawn, and darkness came over him still with appetite unsatiated. He was as mean, however, as he was voracious. He did once so far whip up his liberal spirit as to compel himself to give a dinner party; but when he read the bill of fare, he fairly burst into tears at the idea of the extravagance and the expense. And yet the most costly dish he could reprovingly point to, when his steward challenged him, was a dish of boiled peas;--but perhaps they were out of season, and Galba knew he should be asked for them at least a guinea a quart! _He_ would never have been guilty of the prodigality of the Emperor Otho, who daily wasted more bread and milk in making cosmetic poultices to lay on his own face than would have served to keep body and soul together in half-a-dozen families. The father of Vitellius more gallantly, when he wished to look well at the centre of his table, was wont to besmear himself with a mixture made up of honey and his mistress’s saliva. He of course deemed it impossible to say which was the sweeter of the two ingredients. This was even worse than Galba, who was, however, essentially greedy; the latter emperor could not eat with pleasure unless he had more before him than he could digest. When his stomach cried, “Hold, enough!” he used it as the Somersetshire lad did _his_. “Ah!” exclaimed the lad of Wincanton, to certain monitions,--“ye may ake, but, ’vor I ha’ done, I’ll make ye ake worser.” Galba, when no longer able to eat, lay and gazed at what he hoped to attack more successfully after digestion had been accomplished.

Otho is remembered as being the complaisant gentleman who, when Nero had determined to murder his mother, gave an exquisite little supper to both parties by way of a pleasant preliminary. But Otho could at least behave with outward decency, and of this Vitellius was incapable. If he walked through the market-place, he snatched the meat roasting at the cooks’ stalls, and greedily devoured it. He was not more reverent even in the temple; where, taking advantage of his vicinity to the altar, he would sweep the latter of the barley that was on it, consecrated to the god, and swallow the same, like the sacrilegious heathen that he was. When about to fly from the enemies who had overturned his throne, he selected only his cook and his butler to be the companions of his flight, and he took the former dear associate with him, in his own covered chair.

The chief table trait which I can call to mind as connected with Vespasian is, that once a month he went without dinner for a day. Such an observance, he said, saved at once his health and his purse. He had so much the less to pay to his purveyor; and in consequence of the fast, less also perhaps than if he had feasted, to his physician. Both the sons of Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, were modest at the banquet. The former had ceased to be a free liver before he put on the imperial mantle; and as for Domitian, he could wash down his Malian apple with a draught of water, and then address himself to sleep, as though he were a virtuous anchorite, and not the most thirsty drinker of human blood that ever disgraced his race.

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The five succeeding emperors,--Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines,--Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius,--governed the world during the eighty years which are said, but questionably I think, to have been the happiest years of the human race. There is little on record as to how these potentates disported themselves at table. Trajan, indeed, is known to have been a fearful drinker; but he loved a quiet, unceremonious dinner at the house of a friend of modest degree,--for there he tippled and talked to his heart’s content, and willingly forgot that he was Cæsar. Hadrian is remembered as the first Roman emperor who wore a beard. He had warts on his throat, and he did not like that these should be seen by his guests at table. He once gave an entertainment which cost upwards of two millions sterling, (when Verus was made Cæsar,) and he was sorry for it through the remainder of his life. Many a man of far humbler degree has committed the same kind of extravagance, and experienced the same enduring repentance. Antoninus kept the table of a country gentleman; and Marcus Aurelius dined alone, while Commodus, his son, played at his knee. The board of that son resembled that of Vitellius, and he fell from it one day, full of drugged wine administered to him by a concubine, and was strangled as he lay beneath the table, drunk, and deserving of his fate.

The modest Pertinax was less happy as emperor than when, as a simple official, he had charge of the provisions of Rome. Didius Julianus was deep in the luxuries of the table, and not nearly so deep in wisdom, when he made a bid for the diadem, a few uneasy dinners in the palace, and death. Septimius Severus, cared less for the splendour of his table than the consolidation of his power, but his banquets were choice things, nevertheless. His sons, Caracalla and Geta, exemplified their fraternal unanimity by keeping different tables. They never sat down together at the same board; and there were two factions in the court, something like that of George the Second, at St. James’s, and the son whom he hated, Frederick, Prince of Wales, in Leicester Square. Macrinus was a coarse feeder, and in everything he presented a remarkable contrast with his successor Heliogabalus.

Heliogabalus lay on couches stuffed with hare’s down, or partridge feathers. Ælius Verus reclined on cushions of lily and rose-leaves. The first-named monster had his funny moments; and sometimes he would invite a certain number of bald men, or of gouty men, or grey-headed men, and he was particularly amused at a company of fat men, so crowded together that they could find room only to perspire. “One of his favourite diversions consisted in filling a leathern table-couch with air instead of wool; and while the guests were engaged in drinking, a tap, concealed under the carpet, was opened, unknown to them,--the couch sank, and the drinkers rolled pell-mell under the sigma, to the great delight of the beardless emperor.” He was the first Roman emperor who wore garments of pure, unmixed silk. He cared little for poets or philosophers; but he gave liberal premiums to the inventors of new sauces, provided these pleased his palate. If he disliked them, the inventor was condemned to eat of nothing else, until he had discovered a new condiment to win the imperial sanction. Heliogabalus and George I. had this in common, that they both liked fish a trifle stale. Thus, it is known that George never cared for oysters till their shells began spontaneously to gape; and the Oriental master of the Roman empire, who made a barber prefect of the provisions, would never eat sea-fish except at a great distance from the sea, when they acquired the taint he loved. His delight then was to distribute vast quantities of the rarest sorts, brought at an immense expense, to the peasants of the inland country. The table of his successor, Alexander Severus, was that of a gentleman. Its master was the first Roman emperor to whom that title can be incontestably given; and he loved to have around him accomplished guests of all varieties of opinion; and this is much more than can be said for that huge and hungry Goth, Maximin. The Gordians brought back some of the elegances of social life, which the uncleanness and severity of Maximin had banished; but at both the private and public, the humble and the imperial, tables of Rome, there must have been small ceremony and permanent fear during the brief and troubled reigns of the foolish men who purchased the right of dining in an imperial mantle by being speedily enveloped in a bloody shroud. Gallienus, alone, shines out upon the list as the very prince of cooks; and if Carême had possessed half the enthusiasm which he so warmly affected, he would have named his son and heir after this imperial inventor of _ragoûts_,--who was also the accelerator of the ruin of Rome. All the temperance of the Gothic Claudius could not restore the remnant of ancient moderation, which had been destroyed by that imperial maker of stews, the ever hungry and cruel Gallienus. Aurelian failed, like Claudius, but the emperor Tacitus was more successful, and the descendant of the great historian, even during _his_ short reign, roused the nobles to a sense of dignity, and honoured science by inviting its disciples to his well-ordered table.

A subsequent emperor, Carus, was perhaps one of the most frugal, by habit and inclination, that ever wore the imperial sword upon his thigh. Carus was at once moderate and mirthful. He was seated on the grass, supping on dry bread and grey peas, when the Persian ambassadors came to him, suing for peace. “The matter just stands thus, gentlemen,” said the emperor, opening his mouth widely, at the same time, to insert a shovel-like spoonful of peas; “if your master does not acknowledge the superiority of Rome, I will render Persia,”--and here he took off the cap which he wore to conceal his entire baldness,--“I will render Persia as destitute of trees as my head is of hair.” Having said which, he resumed swallowing his peas, and left the delegates to digest his remark.

We are accustomed to consider Diocletian dining at Salona, on the cabbages he had reared there, as an emperor in reduced circumstances; but the truth is, that the palace, gardens, and table of the ex-emperor were all of a splendid character, and if his table was adorned by the cabbages he had tended to a prize perfection, he was far too wise an epicure to confine himself to that dish alone.

The great Constantine appears under a double aspect, and the least favourable one is offered to us in his maturer years, when he surrendered himself more unreservedly than before to good living, for which he had peculiar facilities at Byzantium, took to wearing false hair, and became altogether a ridiculous old dandy and _bon vivant_; the ridicule of whom, by his clever and unscrupulous nephew, Julian, I am not at all surprised at; for what is so eagerly seized upon by affectionate nephews as the foibles of their indulgent uncles? Julian was possessed just of that scampish sort of nepotism which leads the modest young relative to eat an uncle’s dinners and deride the donor. Julian’s own table would have gained the contempt of an editor of the _Almanach des Gourmands_. Its frugality was frigidly parsimonious in its character. The philosophic emperor was a vegetarian, and even of vegetables he ate sparingly, but swiftly, leaping up, as it were, from dining thereon, to hurry to his books or the public business, which he quitted reluctantly when the hour of supper summoned him even to a more frugal meal than the dinner, which he despatched with a celerity not at all admired by those who dined with him. Nothing disgusted him so much as a gross feeder, and probably nothing ever so greatly surprised him as when, on taking possession of Constantinople, he found one thousand cooks waiting to prepare the imperial dinner! A thousand cooks for a man who could dine on a boiled turnip! The Constantines had been accustomed to dine upon birds from the most distant climates, fish from the most remote seas; to have a dessert of fruits out of their natural seasons, and to drink foreign wines cooled in the summer snows of the lofty hills. All this was as useless to a man who needed but a crust and an apple to calm his appetite, as were the golden basins and the jewelled combs to an emperor like Julian, who seldom washed even his face, and who not only never cleaned his hair, but _felt_ the lively luxury of leaving it undisturbed. Julian in this respect was like Anthony Pasquin, who was said to have died of a cold caught by washing his face. There was a famous Irish member of Parliament, who, unlike Julian, was a glutton at dinner, but who was remarkable for his religious abstinence from all ablution. His son was one day standing in the bow-window of White’s, when the sire was passing down the opposite side of the street. I believe it was the noble lord who, when Mr. Gunter in the hunting-field remarked that his horse was too “hot” to ride comfortably, suggested to the equestrian pastrycook that he should _ice_ him.--I believe it was the same noble lord who, on the first occasion alluded to above, said to “Jack T----,” “Jack! what _does_ make your father’s hands so dirty?” “Well!” said the old Colonel’s affectionate son, “I believe it arises from a bad habit he has of putting them up to his face!” And so of Julian we may say, that if his hands were innocent of water, his famous beard was dirtier than his hands, and that it was not pleasant to lie near the emperor at dinner, unless guardedly ensconced to the leeward of his sacred and dirty person.

If Gratian, who was the first Roman emperor who refused the pontifical robe, had lived but as became the master of an imperial household, his sacrifice would have had more merit; but the emperors of these times had curious ideas as to duties. Thus the second Valentinian delighted in giving splendid dinners, but at these entertainments he always, himself, fasted;--a most discouraging course for the guests,--but he thought there was merit in the work. But Theodosius was at least as good a man, and we know that _he_ enjoyed the sensual and social pleasures of the table without excess; and the same taste was shown by that emperor Maximus, who is said to have espoused Helena, the daughter of a wealthy Caernarvonshire lord, and to have renewed the popularity of boiled leeks in Rome; and this was a better taste than that of Honorius, who took to feeding poultry and eating them, while Stilicho ruled the empire, and the eunuchs lived on the very fat of the land. It was decidedly better too than the taste which led Valentinian the third, after dining with Petronius Maximus and winning his money, to carry off his wife; a Tarquinian insult, which he paid for, however, with his life. Avitus could indulge in such freaks, however, with impunity; and he not only seduced Roman matrons, but invited their husbands to dinner, where the slaves smiled at the imperial raillery directed against them while the courses were changing! His successor, Majorianus, was a man of another stamp, and I would fain believe the pleasant anecdote which says of him that he went to Carthage in the disguise of his own ambassador, and dined with Genseric the king, who was especially chafed when he afterwards discovered that he had entertained, without knowing it, the Emperor of the Romans. Anthemius, if he be famous for little else, is at least famous for the superb wedding-dinner with which he celebrated the nuptials of his daughter with Count Ricimer, a wicked son-in-law who devoured the dinners of his “beau père,” and robbed him of his estate;--no uncommon course for sons-in-law to take. The count placed on the uneasy and vacant throne the epicurean Glycorius, who, having murdered Julius Nepos after a banquet, was made Archbishop of Milan, as one of the recompenses of the act. And then the empire fell into the delicate hands of the weak and beautiful Augustulus, who could not find wherewith in the treasury to maintain a decent table, and who was glad to accept clemency and an annuity from Odoacer, whereby he was enabled, upon six thousand pieces of gold annually, to keep such state in the Castle of Lucullus in Campania, that the surrounding gentry visited him in shoals, and ate his dinners by way of proof that they looked upon him as a man of the highest respectability.

And this was the end of the “twelve vultures,” seen by Romulus, foreshadowing the “twelve centuries,” more or less, that were to mark the duration of the dominion which he founded; a dominion commenced by a hungry adventurer, and which crumbled to nothing in the hand of that Augustulus, who was but too rejoiced to take in exchange for it, the bed, board, and six thousand a year with which he set up as a hospitable country gentleman, in his rustic villa, on the slopes of Campania.

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As for the Cæsars of the Eastern Empire, they were rather Oriental despots than either Greek or Roman monarchs, just as the Byzantines were ever more Asiatics than Europeans. The sovereigns, for the most part, ate at golden tables, and were served like gods. Some of them, like Romanus, were respectable cooks, and more than one was discussing the merits of a new sauce or dish, when the Saracens were knocking at the frontier gates of the empire. The sort of merry humour indulged in by others may be judged of by a single trait of Michael the Drunkard. This amiable sovereign started up, one day, from table, ere the imperial dinner was well over, and assuming an episcopal dress, he descended into the streets followed by his courtiers. The latter bore the vinegar and mustard that had been on the monarch’s side-board, and mixing the condiments together, they stopped all passers-by, compelled them to kneel, and with horrible profanity and mock psalmody, administered the Sacrament with the above-named horribly compounded elements. Such was one of the Eastern Cæsars at and after dinner, and the easy Byzantines were not much scandalized thereat. Indeed, they troubled themselves very little about the affairs of the government, or the doings of the governors; and it would never have entered the head of a Byzantine subject to say of his son what the American citizen once remarked, touching his heir, to Mrs. Trollope, namely, that he would much sooner that his son got drunk three times a week than that he should refrain from meddling with the politics of his times.

From the palaces of the Cæsars, let us now pass into the mansions of miscellaneous majesties, and see how the first gentlemen of their respective days comported themselves “at meat.” Yes, at _meat_; for “la viande du Roi” was the consecrated phrase, and guards presented arms, and courtiers bowed low, as the king’s “meat” was solemnly carried to the royal table, or borne to the bed-side, where it remained under the name of an _en cas_, “in case” the august appetite should be lively before morning.

THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT.

There was an old custom at Pisa, the origin of which may be traced to the anti-judaical days of persecution. On a certain day in the year, I believe, Good Friday or Easter Sunday, every Jew discovered in the streets, was hunted down by the populace. When the game was caught he was weighed, and compelled to ransom himself by paying his own weight of sweetmeats. It was an advantage, then, at Pisa for a Jew to be of a Cassius cast. It was different in other days, and climes, with regard to kings. Nations used to weigh their monarchs yearly, and if the register showed an increase of dignified obesity, great was the popular rejoicing thereat. If, on the other hand, the too, too solid flesh of the potentate had yielded to irresistible influences, and the father of his people exhibited a falling away in his material greatness, the body of loyal subjects went into mourning and tears, and deplored the evil days on which they had fallen, when monarchs could not be kept up to the old monarchical standard of corpulency. Kings who cared for the affections of their people were, accordingly, disinterestedly solicitous to support their corporeal requirements; for to be fat was to be virtuous, and he was really the greatest of monarchs who required the greatest circumference of belt. You must understand, however, that if kings encouraged their own increase, it was disloyal in the people to imitate them. The monarchs of old, in this respect, were like our Henry VIII, who never stinted his own appetite, but who imprisoned the Earl of Surrey in Windsor Castle, for daring to touch a lamb chop on a Friday.

The most gigantic of royal feeders placed on the record of ancient history, was Thys, king of Paphlagonia, at whose table “the entire animal” was served by hundreds. When he fell into the power of Persia he exhibited more appetite than grief, and banqueted in such a style that the courtiers spoke of it wonderingly to their king Artaxerxes. He replied significantly, “Thys is making the most of the shortness of life.”