Page:The English humourists of the eighteenth century. A series of lectures, delivered in England, Scotland, and the United States of America (IA englishhumourist00thacrich).pdf/169

 Such were manners six or seven score years ago. I draw no inference from this queer picture—let all moralists here present deduce their own. Fancy the moral condition of that society in which a lady of fashion joked with a footman, and carved a great shoulder of veal, and provided besides a sirloin, a goose, hare, rabbit, chickens, partridges, black-puddings, and a ham for a dinner for eight Christians. What—what could have been the condition of that polite world in which people openly ate goose after almond pudding, and took their soup in the middle of dinner? Fancy a colonel in the Guards putting his hand into a dish of beignets d'abricot, and helping his neighbour, a young lady du monde! Fancy a noble lord calling out to the servants, before the ladies at his table, "Hang expense, bring us a ha'porth of cheese!" Such were the ladies of Saint James's—such were the frequenters of White's Chocolate House, when Swift used to visit it, and Steele described it as the centre of pleasure, gallantry and entertainment, a hundred and forty years ago!

Dennis who ran a muck at the literary society of his day, falls foul of poor Steele, and thus depicts him,—"Sir John Edgar, of the County of in Ireland is of a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like the picture of somebody over a farmer's chimney—a short chin, a short nose, a short forehead a broad, flat face, and a dusky countenance. Yet with