ble, and are nothing more than extremely convivial men of the
time, who were also large eaters, would have actually consumed. Lord
Alvanley's three hearty suppers, the exploits of the old member of
Parliament in Boz's sketch of Bellamy's (I forget his real name, but he
was not a myth), and other things might be quoted to show that there is
a fatal verisimilitude in the Ambrosian feasts which may, or may not,
make them shocking (they don't shock me), but which certainly takes them
out of the category of merely humorous exaggeration. The Shepherd's
"jugs" numerous as they are (and by the way the Shepherd propounds two
absolutely contradictory theories of toddy-making, one of which,
according to the instructions of my preceptors in that art, who lived
within sight of the hills that look down on Glenlivet, is a damnable
heresy) are not in the least like the _seze muiz, deux bussars, et six
tupins_ of tripe that Gargamelle so rashly devoured. There are men now
living, and honoured members of society in Scotland, who admit the soft
impeachment of having drunk in their youth twelve or fourteen "double"
tumblers at a sitting. Now a double tumbler, be it known to the
Southron, is a jorum of toddy to which there go two wineglasses (of
course of the old-fashioned size, not our modern goblets) of whisky.
"Indeed," said a humorous and indulgent lady correspondent of Wilson's,
"indeed, I really think you eat too many oysters at the _Noctes_;" and
any one who believes in distributive justice must admit that they did.

If, therefore, the reader is of the modern cutlet-and-cup-of-coffee
school of feeding, he will no doubt find the _Noctes_ most grossly and
palpably gluttonous. If he be a very superior person he will smile at
the upholstery. If he objects to horseplay he will be horrified at
finding the characters on one occasion engaging in a regular "mill," on
more than one corking each other's faces during slumber, sometimes
playing at pyramids like the bounding brothers of acrobatic fame, at
others indulging in leap-frog with the servants, permitting themselves
practical jokes of all kinds, affecting to be drowned by an explosive
haggis, and so forth. Every now and then he will come to a passage at
which, without being superfine at all, he may find his gorge rise;
though there is nothing quite so bad in the _Noctes_ as the picture of
the ravens eating a dead Quaker in the _Recreations_, a picture for
which Wilson offers a very lame de