ste, there are some things to be learned from that
people whose formative genius is still the wonder of the world. The meal
of society among the Greeks consisted of only two courses, or, to speak
more strictly, of one course and a dessert; and the first or solid
course was in all probability made up of small portions of each kind of
food. The more vulgar Romans added in all cases a third, but
occasionally a fourth, fifth, sixth, even a seventh course; and at the
fall of the empire, barbarian taste uniting with the _blase_ luxury of
Rome, heaped viand upon viand, and course upon course, till the satire
of a later poet became mere common-place:--

'Is this a dinner, this a genial room?
No; 'tis a temple, and a hecatomb!'

This extravagance has gradually given way in the course of civilisation.
We have no more meals consisting of a score of courses; no more gilded
pigs, fish, and poultry; no more soups, each of three or four different
colours: but as yet we are only in the midst of the transition, and have
not got back even to the comparative refinement of the Greeks. At the
end of their first course, the more earthly part of the entertainment
was already over. Then the guests washed their hands; then they were
presented with perfumes and garlands of flowers; and then they drank
wine, accompanied with the singing of the paean and the sound of flutes.
Such adjuncts, with us, would for the most part be out of place and
time; but some of them might be taken metaphorically, and others
entirely changed--such as the libation to the gods--to suit a new
religious feeling, and a new form of manners. The modern _coena_ might
thus be made to surpass that of the ancients in refinement and elegance;
and it would include, as a matter of course, some of the
amusements--varying from a song to a philosophical discussion--which
gave the charm to their symposia.

As for the symposium, we shall have nothing to do with that vexed
subject, further than just to hint--for we should be loath to exclude
from the benefit of our proposed reform a certain numerous and
respectable class of the community--that in ancient times it had no
necessary connection with the dinner at all. A little wine-and-water was
drunk during the dessert--never during the first course--and then the
meal was over. The symposium was literally a drinking-party, given, for
the sake of convenience, after the dinner-party; but so far from forming
a part of the latter, t