sory
appellation of "cold meat." The celebrated Dr. Kitchener, the
sympathetic author of the _Cook's Oracle_, writing in 1825, says: "Your
luncheon may consist of a bit of roasted poultry, a basin of beef tea,
or eggs poached, or boiled in the shell; fish plainly dressed, or a
sandwich; stale bread; and half a pint of good homebrewed beer, or
toast-and-water, with about one-fourth or one-third part of its measure
of wine." And this prescription would no doubt have worn an aspect of
liberal concession to the demands of the patient's appetite. It is
difficult, by any effort of a morbid imagination, to realize a time when
there was no five-o'clock tea; and yet that most sacred of our national
institutions was only invented by the Duchess of Bedford who died in
1857, and whose name should surely be enrolled in the Positivist
Kalendar as a benefactress of the human race. No wonder that by seven
o'clock our fathers, and even our mothers, were ready to tackle a dinner
of solid properties; and even to supplement it with the amazing supper
(which Dr. Kitchener prescribes for "those who dine very late") of
"gruel, or a little bread and cheese, or pounded cheese, and a glass of
beer."

This is a long digression from the subject of excessive drinking, with
which, however, it is not remotely connected; and, both in respect of
drunkenness and of gluttony, the habits of English society in the years
which immediately succeeded the French Revolution showed a marked
amelioration. To a company of enthusiastic Wordsworthians who were
deploring their master's confession that he got drunk at Cambridge, I
heard Mr. Shorthouse, the accomplished author of _John Inglesant_,
soothingly remark that in all probability "Wordsworth's standard of
intoxication was miserably low."[9] Simultaneously with the restriction
of excess there was seen a corresponding increase in refinement of taste
and manners. Some of the more brutal forms of so-called sport, such as
bull-baiting and cock-fighting, became less fashionable. The more
civilized forms, such as fox-hunting and racing, increased in favour.
Aesthetic culture was more generally diffused. The stage was at the
height of its glory. Music was a favourite form of public recreation.
Great prices were given for works of art. The study of physical science,
or "natural philosophy" as it was called, became popular. Public
Libraries and local "book societies" sprang up, and there was a wide
demand for encyclopa