m, after the principal meal of the day, to play on the
organ and hear another sing.[182:1]

The Reverend Sydney Smith once said that his idea of heaven was eating
_foie gras_ to the sound of trumpets.

There is evidence that in ancient times the banquets, which immediately
followed sacrifices, were attended with instrumental music. For we read
in Isaiah, v, 12: "And the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and
wine, are in their feasts." And in the households of wealthy Roman
citizens, instruction was given in the art of carving, to the sound of
music, with appropriate gestures, under the direction of the official
carver (_carptor_ or _scissor_).[182:2]

We find in the "Apocrypha"[182:3] the following passage: "If thou be
made the master of a feast . . . hinder not musick. . . . A concert of
musick in a banquet of wine is as a signet of carbuncle set in gold. As
a signet of an emerald set in a work of gold, so is the melody of musick
with pleasant wine."

Chaucer, in his "Parson's Tale," speaks of the _Curiositie of
Minstralcie_, at the banquets of the well-to-do in his day.

The banquets of the Anglo-Saxons were enlivened by minstrels and
gleemen, whose visits were welcome breaks in the monotony of the
people's lives. They added to their musical performances mimicry and
other means of promoting mirth, as well as dancing and tumbling, with
sleights of hand, and a variety of deceptions to amuse the
company.[183:1] In the intervals between the musical exercises, the
guests talked, joked, propounded and answered riddles, and boasted of
their own exploits, while disparaging those of others. Later,
when the liquor took effect, they were wont to become noisy and
quarrelsome.[183:2] "Then wine wets the man's breast-passions; suddenly
rises clamour in the company, an outcry they send forth various."[183:3]

In the great houses of the nobility and gentry, minstrels' music was the
usual seasoning of food. It is true, wrote Mons. J. J. Jusserand, in
"English Wayfaring Life of the Fourteenth Century," that "the voices of
the singers were at times interrupted by the crunching of the bones,
which the dogs were gnawing under the tables, or by the sharp cry of
some ill-bred falcon; for many lords kept these favorite birds on
perches behind them."

We learn from the same authority that in the great dining-halls of the
castles of the wealthy, galleries were placed for the accommodation of
the minstrels, above the door of entra