ugh
the whole affair be but a matter of taste. It is likewise a miserable
thing to differ after dinner, since it lamentably disturbs the digestion
of the food, as in this case it may the temper of the feeders. Yet
respecting the dinner to celebrate the Birthday of Burns in Freemasons'
Hall, there is a remarkable difference among the critical craft; which
difference, by the way, no shades of opinion can reconcile. As we were not
of the party, (and we congratulate ourselves on the escape from a Scottish
half-dinner,) it may be well to quote from three of the reports that have
appeared, rather than let the affair pass unnoticed in our pages. We do so
from a wish to preserve certain traits and anecdotes which the occasion
drew forth,--to give the pleasant rather than the "untoward" events of the
day: though we must own the whole appears to have been a very droll
business, always excepting the _semi-pransus_.

We start with an extract from Dr. Granville's _Catechism of Health_:--

_Q_. What should a dinner consist of?

_A_. Of any wholesome food that is in season, plainly dressed.

_Q_. Should the dinner be composed of many dishes?

_A_. The most wholesome dinner is that which consists of a single dish of
meat, with a proper quantity of vegetables.

Whether the Scottish dinner was as aforesaid, we know not. Call the
evidence.

_Court Journal_.--A public dinner at a public-house (this is a court
sneer)--provided by Scotch booksellers, presided at by a Scotch baronet,
accompanied by Scotch bagpipes, and prepared for two hundred Scotch
appetites, there being four hundred of the said appetites admitted to
partake of it.

_Athenaeum_.--Nearly five hundred persons were present at a dinner ordered
for two hundred and fifty.

_Literary Gazette_.--The stewards provided for 300 guests: another hundred
coming without notice of their intention, were speedily accommodated; and
surely the exertion to accomplish this is more to be praised, than any
little partial failure or inconvenience (such as attends all large public
dinners) is to be cavilled at and blamed. The dinner and wines were of the
first order, and at least nine-tenths of those present were highly
gratified by their entertainment.

But we will first quote the _Athenaeum_ account, from its being the most
brief as well as more circumstantial, and then add the _variorum_ opinions.

"Little else has been talked of these ten days, in the literary world of
London, but t