Similarly, it was Queen Caroline’s custom while she dressed herself to have prayers read in an outer room, where there hung a picture of a naked Venus. Dr. Maddox, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, was one day the chaplain on duty, when the bed-chamber woman-in-waiting conveyed to him the Queen’s command to begin the service, at which he looked up archly at the picture and said, “And a very pretty altar-piece is here!”
ROYAL REVELRY
Perhapsno chapter in the social history of royalty has given us a more vivid insight into the merry doings of the sovereigns of the past, in our own and other countries, than that which deals with their drinking and revelry. Indeed, moralists, at one time or another, have been more or less severe in their strictures on what they regarded as the undue freedom displayed at Court festivities, when not infrequently king as well as courtiers were in a state of deplorable incapacity.
The orgies, for instance, in which Peter the Great revelled were, it is said, as reckless and abandoned as those of his contemporary the Regent d’Orleans; but probably no one save Peter would have employed them to ascertain the hidden thoughts of his courtiers. According to De Villebois,[11]he was in the habit of inviting men whom he secretly disliked, in order that he might carefully note down the words which escaped them when drunk, and sometimes even for the purpose of getting rid of them by inducing them to drink themselves to death. The immediate cause of hisown death was the aggravation of a loathsome disease, under which he had long been labouring, by a debauch at one of his conclaves—those travesties of the election of a Pope which, “amidst the most outrageous drunkenness and the grossest buffoonery, he held yearly, partly in order to keep up the contempt of his subjects for the Latin Church, and partly also to ridicule the office of Patriarch, which he had abolished.”[12]And, similarly, Frederick William I. of Prussia, who himself was a hard drinker, loved to make his guests drunk; his daughter even states that he did so to her bridegroom, the hereditary Prince of Bayreuth, on his wedding-day. Carlyle has fully described the royal tap-rooms which were established in Berlin, at Potsdam, and during summer at Wusterhausen, as a source of recreation at the Court of Frederick William I. That at Berlin, furnished in the Dutch fashion, has been kept unaltered, with the large silver beer can from which the malt liquor was drawn by means of a tap into the jugs and tankards. The visitor is shown, too, the strangers’ book, in which the autographs of Frederick the Great and the Czar Peter are preserved.
But perhaps one of the most drunken and dissolute monarchs that ever disgraced a throne was one of Peter’s predecessors, Ivan IV., of whom it has been said that he was “ever exemplarily devout when he was most stupidly drunk.” His habitual intemperance, however, made him cruel, prompting him to commit all kinds of diabolical crimes—hisindulgence in strong drink eventually rendering him hopelessly insane; for what other excuse could be made for his conduct as exemplified in his smiting his own son dead by blows from an iron bar in a fit of fury.
The merits of French wines were long ago appreciated by royalty, and in early times our own wine trade with France was very considerable when English kings were proprietors of the French wine districts. But it would seem that even royalty has cracked legions of bottles in discussing the divers deserts of Burgundy and champagne, although it is said imperial authority is in favour of the latter. When the Emperor Wenceslaus visited France in the fourteenth century to negotiate with Charles VI., it was impossible ever to get him sober to a conference. “It was no matter,” he said; “they might decide as they liked, and he would drink as he liked, and then both parties would be on an equality.”
In the midst of the distress with which France was harassed in the reign of Charles VII., and while the English were in possession of Paris, his Majesty amused himself with balls, entertainments, and revelry. The brave La Hire, coming to the King one day for the purpose of discussing with him some important business, found him actively occupied in arranging one of his pleasure parties, who asked what he thought of his preparations. “I think, sire,” he said, “that it is impossible for any one to lose his kingdom more pleasantly than your Majesty.”
And another French king who brought into more or less contempt the throne was Francis I., by giving himself up to his pleasures. It is said that he framed a Court of which licentiousness was the custom, and from which justice, temperance, and every Christian as well as chivalric virtue was banished.[13]
The King of Hungary was in the habit of sending yearly to the abdicated Polish king, Stanislaus Leczinski, at Nancy, a little cask of imperial Tokay, which was received at the gates of his palace under an escort of grenadiers. But, as it has been observed, “Little casks will soon run dry if the spigot be often turned,” and when the Tokay was out, Stanislaus would sigh for more. He was not able to purchase it, for the produce was small and imperial property. He resolved to imitate it, and after various trials he succeeded, by mixing Burgundy with ingredients only known to himself, in composing what he thought might pass for Tokay. He kept his secret, and when the annual imperial cask arrived—it contained but a hundred bottles—he made presents of his own Tokay to his courtiers, and kept the genuine wine for himself. The lords of the Court were “delighted at the favour conferred on them, but when they discovered that his ex-Majesty had distributed no less than six hundred bottles, they thought of the readiness of his concocting hand,and laughed at the trick he had played them. The Stanislaus Tokay was not consumed so quickly as the imported wine, but it rose in value with its years, a single bottle having fetched the exorbitant price of forty-two francs. It was indifferent wine, but an ex-king made it, and the price was paid not merely for the liquor, but for the name of the composer.” But this is only one of the many amusing anecdotes related of Stanislaus, who was famed for being the most courteous of hosts, entertaining not only nobles but artists, and philosophers, at his well-laden table. Indeed, after his abdication, Stanislaus kept a princely establishment, the splendour and cost of which was not infrequently the subject of comment. On one occasion, when he heard that the daughters of Louis—Adelaide and Victoria—had set out from Metz to Luneville to visit their grandfather, the ex-king ordered magnificent preparations for their reception, which prompted his steward to remark that so much splendour was not needed for his “petites filles”; but Stanislaus, with a smile, replied: “Mes petites filles sont plus grandes que moi.”
The dissolute and extravagant habits of the Court of Gustavus III. of Sweden were most severely condemned, and rightly so, for we are told that whilst revelry and pageantry in constantly varying shapes distinguished his effeminate and luxurious Court, misery and famine extended themselves rapidly amongst the labouring poor, from one extremity of Sweden to another. The groans of the wretched who perished of want, the curses of the degraded paupers who were reduced to seekfor such food as the King’s well-fed hounds would have turned from with loathing, produced not the least retrenchment. Meanwhile Gustavus continued his guilty magnificence, heedless of, and indifferent to, the misery around him; and which, it is said, was greatly aggravated, if not actually caused, by his wasteful magnificence and profligacy. It is not surprising that the excessive taxation necessary to support the King’s expenditure and extravagances found vent in dangerous disturbances.
It would have been well had he taken a lesson from the great Christina, who, it is said, occasionally passed days without drinking, detesting wine and beer, and having no special taste for any other liquid, with the exception of rose-water, of which she was extremely fond. Oftentimes when young she would repair to the Dowager’s toilet-table, and there refresh herself with her favourite cosmetic, until she was one day caught in the act, when “the dowager lady administered to her such a whipping that Christina could never think of it, to her latest hour, without a feeling of uneasiness.”
The able ruler of Denmark for sixty years, the defender of the Reformed religion—Christian IV.—was not above enjoying a carouse, and on his visit to this country in 1606 he was invited with his brother-in-law, James I., to a festival at Theobalds, the seat of the Prime Minister Cecil, Lord Salisbury, when it appears that the revels were marked by scenes of intemperance, an amusing account of which has been left by Sir John Harrington. He tells us that “the sports began each day in suchmanner and sort as well-nigh persuaded me of Mahomet’s Paradise. We had women, and indeed wine too, of such plenty as would have astonished each beholder. Our feasts were magnificent, and the royal guests did most lovingly embrace each other at table. I think the Dane had strangely wrought on our good English nobles, for those whom I could never get to take good liquor now follow the fashion, and wallow in beastly delights. The ladies abandon their sobriety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication. In good sooth, the Parliament did kindly to provide his Majesty so seasonably with money, for there have been no lack of good living, shows, sights, and banquetings from morn to eve.” From this and similar accounts, the Danish and English monarchs seem to have had a good time, and not to have spared the costly liquor put before them, abandoning themselves to unrestrained excess. But some excuse must be made for the royal delinquents on this occasion, when it is remembered that it was a special gala time in honour of the Danish sovereign.
Charles V., Emperor of Germany, drank in proportion as he ate, excess in each case having hastened the termination of his failing health. Iced beer was one of his favourite drinks, which was often administered as soon as he rose in the morning. When Roger Ascham saw his Majesty on one occasion in Germany, on St. Andrew’s Day, sitting at dinner at the feast of the Golden Fleece, he writes: “He drank the best that I ever saw. He had his head in the glass five times as long as anyof us, and never drank less than a good quart at once of Rhenish”—a no mean performance.
But suffering, caused by chalk-stones and gout, did not induce him to moderate his mode of living, and to be more sparing in his tankards of ale and flasks of wine. And, unfortunately, his medical men had not the moral courage to dissuade him from drinking what was daily aggravating his gout, but allowed him to satisfy every appetite by providing palliations. And so he went on in his excesses, till his frame, worn out by disease, sank from exhaustion. It would appear that this monarch’s drinking proclivities were at the time well known in this country, as may be gathered from a return which was made by order on the occasion of his visit to Henry VIII. The city authorities appear “to have been afraid of being drunk dry by the swarming Flemings in the Emperor’s train. To avoid such a calamity, a return was made of all the wine to be found at the eleven wine merchants and the twenty-eight principal taverns then in London; the sum total of which was 800 pipes.”
In alluding to Henry VIII., it may be noted that history has given many anecdotes of the drinking habits of his predecessors on the English throne. Thus Rapin observes that William I. balanced his faults by “a religious outside, a great chastity, and a commendable temperance, but that his son was neither religious, nor chaste, nor temperate; whilst Malmesbury adds that he met with his tragical end in the New Forest after he hadsoothed his cares with a more than usual quantity of wine.”[14]
The tragedy of Henry I.’s reign was the loss of the ill-fatedWhite Shipwith Prince William, only one out of its 300 passengers surviving to tell the tale—a poor butcher of Rouen, named Berthould, who climbed to the top of the mast, and was rescued by some fishermen. To quote an oft-told story, King Henry and his heir embarked at Barfleur for England in separate vessels, when the Prince, to make the passage pleasant, not only took with him a number of the young nobility, but ordered three casks of wine to be given to the crew, with the result that the sailors were for the most part intoxicated when they put to sea at nightfall, and allowed the vessel to strike upon a rock. It is recorded that Henry was never again seen to smile, although he survived this terrible event fifteen years, having hastened his end by a surfeit of lampreys.
Unlike their father Henry II., Geoffrey, Richard, and John were far from abstemious. According to Giraldus, so dissolute and hot was Geoffrey in his youth, that “he was equally ensnared by allurements, and driven on to action by stimulants;” whilst one of the metrical romances of the period has left a graphic picture of the royal Yuletide revelry at this period, which lasted for twelve days, during which time excess rather than sobriety was the rule. D’Aubigné, quoting from Matthew Paris, declares that John died of drunkenness andfright—a statement endorsed by Sir Walter Scott in his “Ivanhoe,” where he writes: “It is well known that his death was occasioned by a surfeit upon peaches and new ale.” An amusing anecdote tells how, when King John made his last visit to Nottingham, he called at the Mayor’s residence, and at the house of the priest of St. Mary’s. But, finding neither ale in the cellar of the one nor bread in the cupboard of the other, he ordered every publican in the town to contribute sixpenny-worth of ale to the Mayor yearly, and every baker to provide the priest with a halfpenny loaf weekly.
Edward I. found little pleasure in the pleasures of the table; but his successor, Edward II., is said to have given way to intemperance, and it has been suggested that “had not the banqueting-room been oftener employed than the council-chamber, opportunities might not have occurred for the rebellion of favourites, for which the festal board was answerable.” The mad dissipation of Henry V. when Prince of Wales has been immortalised by Shakespeare, but, to his credit, the responsibility of the crown made him an altered man, and among his troops at Agincourt drunkenness was counted a disgrace. Indeed, so impressed was Henry with the bane of intemperance that it is said he would gladly have cut down all the vines in France. The last years of Edward IV.’s life were spent in luxurious and intemperate habits, which had most fatal effects on his health; and some idea of the lavish expenditure at this period may be gathered from the Paston Letters, where an account is given of an
EDWARD I.
EDWARD I.
EDWARD I.
intendedprogressof his Majesty, wherein Sir John Paston is urged to warn William Gogney and his fellows “to purvey them of wine enough, for every man beareth me in hand that the town shall be drank dry, as York was when the King was there.”
And coming down to Henry VIII. again, it appears that he was often intoxicated, and found pleasure in keeping the lowest company. And, as it has been observed, “his right hand, Wolsey, was actually put in the stocks by Sir Amias Powlett, when he was rector of Lymington, for drunkenness at a neighbouring fair.”
The consort of Queen Mary soon found out the favourite English drink, and for the first time he drank some ale at a public dinner, remarking that he had come to England to live like an Englishman. Elizabeth seldom drank anything but common beer, “fearing the use of wine, lest it should cloud her faculties.” And Leicester writes to Burleigh that at a certain place in her Majesty’s travels “there was not one drop of good drink for her, ... he were fain to send forthwith to London, and to Kenilworth, and divers other places where ale was; her own ale was so strong as there was no man able to drink it.” But, abstemious and temperate as her Majesty was, exception has been taken to the costly extravagance displayed at the Kenilworth pageant, when, it is stated, no less than 365 hogsheads of beer were drunk, in addition to the daily complement of 16 hogsheads of wine.
James I. was fond of drink, and reference hasalready been made to the visit of his jovial brother-in-law, which led to one more scene of inebriety. His partiality was for “sweet rich wines,” and Coke tells us that he indulged “not in ordinary French and Spanish wines, but in strong Greek wines.” Even when hunting he was attended by a special officer, who constantly supplied him with his favourite beverages. On one such occasion Coke’s father managed to obtain a draught of the royal wine, which, writes his son, “not only produced intoxication, and spoiled his day’s sport, but disordered him for three days afterwards.”[15]It is said, however, that James would next day remember his excesses, “and repent with tears;” and as Mr. Jesse adds, “the maudlin monarch weeping over the recollections of the last night’s debauch must have been an edifying sight to his courtiers.”
Whatever the failings of Charles I. might be, he could not be accused of that indulgence in strong drinks which had caused so much scandal in previous reigns. Thus Lord Clarendon writes: “As he excelled in all other virtues, so in temperance he was so strict, that he abhorred all debauchery to that degree, that at a great festival solemnity where he once was, being told by one who withdrew from thence, what vast draughts of wine they drank, and that there was one earl who had drunk most of the rest down and was not himself moved or altered, the King said that he deserved to be hanged; and that earl coming shortly after into theroom where his Majesty was, in some gaiety, to show how unhurt he was from that battle, the King sent one to bid him withdraw from his Majesty’s presence; nor did he in some days after appear before him.”
But the same could not be said of Charles II., concerning whose revels many curious anecdotes have been told. At a supper given by the Duke of Buckingham he tried to make his nephew, the Prince of Orange, drunk. The Prince was somewhat averse to wine, and at the period in question was paying his addresses to his future consort, the Princess Mary. However, having been induced to join in the evening’s debauch, he became the gayest and most frolicsome of the party. On their breaking up, the Prince even commenced smashing the windows of the maids-of-honour, and “would have forced himself into their rooms had he not been timely prevented.”[16]
An account of one of Charles’s debauches after a hunting party in 1667 is amusingly told by Pepys,[17]who heard it from Sir Hugh Cholmely, an eye-witness. “They came,” he says, “to Sir G. Carteret’s house at Cranbourne, and there were entertained, and all made drunk; and being all drunk, Armerer did come to the King and swear to him: ‘By G—, sir,’ says he, ‘you are not so kind to the Duke of York of late as you used to be.’ ‘Not I?’ says the King; ‘why not?’ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘if you are, let us drink his health.’ ‘Why,let us,’ says the King. Then he (Armerer) fell on his knees and drank it; and having done, the King began to drink it. ‘Nay, sir,’ says Armerer, ‘by G—, you must do it on your knees.’ So he did, and then all the company: and having done it, all fell a-crying for joy, being all maudlin and kissing one another; the King the Duke of York, and the Duke of York the King, and in such a maudlin pickle as never people were.”
On another occasion Charles was dining with Sir Robert Viner, during his mayoralty, when he rose to depart. The good Mayor, however, had indulged rather too freely in his own wines, and taking hold of the King, he swore that he should remain and have another bottle. Charles, it is said, “looked kindly at him over the shoulder, and repeating with a smile a line of the old song—
‘He that’s drunk is as great as a king’—
‘He that’s drunk is as great as a king’—
‘He that’s drunk is as great as a king’—
remained as long as he wished.”[18]
And it is worthy of record that when Ford erected waterworks on the Thames in front of Somerset House, the queen of Charles II.—after the manner of the Princess Borghese, who pulled down a church next to her palace because the incense made her feel sick and the organ produced headache—ordered the works to be demolished since they obstructed a clear view on the river. It may be mentioned, too, that at this period tea as a beverage was in favour at the Court of CharlesII. owing to Queen Catherine, who had been used to drink it in Portugal.
James II., on the other hand, was most averse to hard drinking, and a contemporary writes how “the King, going to mass, told his attendants he had been informed that since his declaring against the disorder of the household, some had the impudence to appear drunk in the Queen’s presence; ... but he advised them at their peril to observe his order, which he would see obeyed.”
The drinking habits of William III. are well known, and the banqueting-house at Hampton Court, which was used by him as a smoking and drinking room, has been described as a royal gin-temple. Among his drinking companions were Lord Wharton and the Earl of Pembroke. In one of his moments of hilarity he said to the former: “I know, Tom, what you wish for: you wish for a republic. I shall bring over King James’s son.” To which Lord Wharton replied, “That is as your Majesty pleases.” William, having been warned that the Earl of Pembroke was quarrelsome over his cups, said, “I will defy any one to quarrel with me, as long as I can make the bottle go round.” But the King was mistaken, for that night Pembroke used language personally offensive to him, and was carried drunk from the apartment to bed. The next morning, alarmed at his conduct, he hastened to the palace to ask forgiveness.
“Make no apologies,” replied the King. “I was told you had no fault in the world but one, and I amglad to find it is true, for I dislike people who have no faults.”[19]
The scandal of the time, too, accused the Queen of fondness for drink, but it is certain that her physicians warned her against a strong spiritual cordial which, when ill, she was in the habit of taking in large quantities.
One of the failings laid to the charge of Queen Anne was a love of strong drink; but, as it has been remarked, “the supposition that she was in the habit of having secret recourse to the bottle, as affording the means of adventitious excitement, seems to rest on the widespread scandal of the period and a few contemporary lampoons.” In some verses, “On Queen Anne’s Statue in St. Paul’s Churchyard,” this allusion is made:—
“Here mighty Anna’s statue placed we find,Betwixt the darling passions of her mind;A brandy-shop before, a church behind.But why the back turned to that sacred place,As thy unhappy father’s was—to Grace?Why here, like Tantalus, in torments placed,To view those waters which thou canst not taste;Though, by thy proffered Globe, we may perceive,That for a dram thou the whole world wouldst give.”[20]
“Here mighty Anna’s statue placed we find,Betwixt the darling passions of her mind;A brandy-shop before, a church behind.But why the back turned to that sacred place,As thy unhappy father’s was—to Grace?Why here, like Tantalus, in torments placed,To view those waters which thou canst not taste;Though, by thy proffered Globe, we may perceive,That for a dram thou the whole world wouldst give.”[20]
“Here mighty Anna’s statue placed we find,Betwixt the darling passions of her mind;A brandy-shop before, a church behind.But why the back turned to that sacred place,As thy unhappy father’s was—to Grace?Why here, like Tantalus, in torments placed,To view those waters which thou canst not taste;Though, by thy proffered Globe, we may perceive,That for a dram thou the whole world wouldst give.”[20]
And again:—
“When brandy Nan became our queen,’Twas all a drunken story;From noon to night I drank and smoked,And so was thought a Tory.Brimful of wine, all sober folkWe damned, and moderation;And for right Nantes we pawned to FranceOur goods and reputation.”[21]
“When brandy Nan became our queen,’Twas all a drunken story;From noon to night I drank and smoked,And so was thought a Tory.Brimful of wine, all sober folkWe damned, and moderation;And for right Nantes we pawned to FranceOur goods and reputation.”[21]
“When brandy Nan became our queen,’Twas all a drunken story;From noon to night I drank and smoked,And so was thought a Tory.Brimful of wine, all sober folkWe damned, and moderation;And for right Nantes we pawned to FranceOur goods and reputation.”[21]
But the Duchess of Marlborough, despite her hostility to the Queen’s memory, defends her character from this aspersion: “I know,” says she, “that in some libels she has been reproached as one who indulged herself in drinking strong liquors, but I believe this was utterly groundless, and that she never went beyond such a quantity of strong wines as her physicians judged to be necessary for her.”
Coming to the Hanoverian period, if George II. reflected little dignity on the throne, he is said to have been over his punch a cheerful and sometimes an amusing companion. Despite his inordinate love of women, he was always temperate, whereby, says Lord Waldegrave, he was preserved from many of the infirmities of old age. George III., too, was most abstemious, and a story is told that, on his visit to Worcester in 1788, the Mayor, knowing that his Majesty never took drink before dinner, asked him if he would be pleased to take a jelly; whereupon the King replied, “I do not recollect drinking a glass of wine before dinner in my life, yet upon this pleasing occasion I will venture.” A glass of rich oldMountainwas served, when his Majesty immediately drank “Prosperity to the Corporation and Citizens of Worcester.” That the King continued to adhere to his rigid habit may be illustratedby an incident which happened twelve years afterwards. One morning, when visiting his stables, he heard this conversation between the grooms: “I don’t care what you say, Robert, but every one agrees that the man at the Three Tuns makes the best purl in Windsor.”
“Purl, purl!” said the King promptly. “Robert, what’s purl?” Which on his Majesty being informed was warm beer with a glass of gin, caused him to add, “I daresay, very good drink, but too strong for the morning; never drink in the morning.”
But George IV. was the opposite of his predecessor, for intemperance, as it has been said, was a feature of his moral career, a proclivity which Huish informs us very nearly cost him dear while yet a youth.[22]At a dinner-party at Lord Chesterfield’s house at Blackheath, the guests drank to excess and engaged in riotous frolic. One of the company “let loose a big fierce dog, which at once flew at a footman, tore one of his arms terribly, and nearly strangled a horse. The whole party now formed themselves into a compact body and assailed Towzer, who had just caught hold of the skirts of the coat of his Royal Highness, when one of the guests felled the dog to the ground. In the confusion the Earl of Chesterfield tumbled down the steps leading to his house, and severely injured the back of his head. The Prince, who scarcely knew whether he had been fighting a dog or a man, jumped into his phaeton and there fell asleep,leaving the reins to his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, who drove him safely to town.”
One of the strangest acts of his life was his conduct upon the arrival of his bride-elect, Caroline of Brunswick, which Lord Malmesbury thus tells: “I introduced the Princess Caroline to him. She very properly attempted to kneel to him. He raised her (gracefully enough) and embraced her, said barely one word, turned round, retired to a distant part of the apartment, and calling me to him, said, ‘Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy.’ I said, ‘Sir, had you not better have a glass of water?’ Upon which he, much out of humour, said with an oath: ‘No; I will go directly to the Queen.’”No wonder the Princess remarked to Malmesbury, “Mon Dieu, est-ce que le Prince est toujours comme cela?” According to Lord Holland, on his wedding-day the Prince had drunk so much brandy that he could scarcely be kept upright between two dukes.
Another bacchanalian story is associated with the Pavilion at Brighton. It seems that the Duke of Norfolk—now a very old man, and celebrated for his table exploits—had been invited by the Prince to dine at the Pavilion, who had concocted with his royal brothers a scheme for making the old man drunk. Every person at table was enjoined to drink wine with the Duke—a challenge which the old toper did not refuse. But “he soon began to see that there was a conspiracy against him; he drank glass for glass; heoverthrew many of the brave. At last the first gentleman of the empire proposed bumpers in brandy. One of the royal brothers filled a glass for the Duke. He stood up and tossed off the drink. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘I will have my carriage and go home.’ The Prince urged him to remain, but he said ‘No,’ for he had had enough of such hospitality.” The carriage was called, and he staggered in as best as he could, and bade the postillions drive to Arundel. They drove him for half-an-hour round and round the Pavilion lawn; the poor old man fancied he was going home: the liquor had proved too potent for him. And when he awoke that morning he was in bed at the Pavilion.[23]
The King’s successor, William IV., was a strong advocate for temperance, although he enjoyed his wine and entered heartily into the merriment of the social board. It is related how, on the death of the keeper of Bushey Park, William, then Duke of Clarence, appointed the keeper’s son to succeed him. This young man broke his leg, a circumstance which elicited the practical sympathy of the Duke. But on his recovery the young man took to drinking, to check which propensity the Duke required his attendance every night at eight, when, if he appeared the worse for drink, he reprimanded him the following morning. The Prince’s efforts were fruitless, for the keeper died of intemperance soon afterwards.
ROYAL EPICURES
Royaltyin times past has had many an accomplished epicure, as learned in culinary lore as in the practice of the cuisine. Charlemagne took a warm personal interest in the management of his table, and Hardicanute, one of our Danish kings, was so great a gourmand that he was designated “Swine’s Mouth”—his table, it is said, having been covered four times a day with the most costly viands that the air, sea, or land could produce. It was Henry de Valois who brought into fashion aromatic sauces and various spicy dainties, inheriting his taste for cooking from Catherine de Medicis, who introduced into France not only ices, but much of the culinary art from Italy; while the Prince de Soubise, immortalised by the sauce named after him, was a connoisseur of no mean order. He could boast of an excellent cook, but a man with princely notions of expenditure. One day the Prince announced his intention to him of giving a supper, and demanded an estimate. The first article on which the Prince cast his eyes was this: “Fifty hams;” whereupon he inquired, “Are you going to feast my whole regiment?”
“My lord,” replied the cook, “you do notunderstand our resources; give the word, and these fifty hams which confound you, I will put them all into a glass bottle no bigger than my thumb.” Accordingly the Prince nodded, and the article passed.
Charlemagne once ate cheese mixed with parsley seeds at a bishop’s palace, and liked it so much that ever after he had two cases of such cheese sent yearly to Aix-la-Chapelle—a device which Gay has noted:—
“Marbled with sage, the hardened cheese she press’d.”
“Marbled with sage, the hardened cheese she press’d.”
“Marbled with sage, the hardened cheese she press’d.”
Charles the Great ate venison with special pleasure, and Henry IV. of France ate melons and oysters whenever possible—a taste which reminds us of that of Frederick, son of Ernest “the Iron,” who on recovering from amputation of the leg one day resolved on dining on melons, his favourite dish. He was told that such a diet would be fatal to him, as it had already been to one Austrian archduke of his house; but he took no heed of the advice. “I will have melons,” said he, “betide what may!” Of melons, accordingly, he ate to his heart’s content, and death followed shortly afterwards.
Louis XIII. was fond of early fruit, and he had strawberries in March, and figs in June. Fagon, physician to Louis XIV., was a famous expert in the culinary art, and in the declining days of his illustrious master devised for him thecotelette à la Maintenon. It appears that the mutton cutlets of Madame de Maintenon were enveloped in curlpapers, but Fagon arranged a more artistic and nourishing dish, in which unboned cutlets were spread with nourishing sauce, minced vegetables, and seasoning. The appetite of Louis XIV. in the prime of life had been prodigious, and the Duchess of Orleans tells us in her Memoirs that she had often seen him eat four plates full of soup, a whole pheasant, a partridge, a plate of salad, mutton hashed with garlic, two slices of ham, a dish of pastry, in addition to fruit and sweetmeats. Hence it is not surprising that in this monarch’s reign cooking made the most rapid advances, being at one time employed to give a zest to his glories, and at another to console him in their decline.
It is fortunate for royalty that the history of gastronomy can boast of few such rash acts as that committed by the ex-Emperor Wenceslaus, who, when residing at Prague, where he reigned as King of Bohemia, after his ejection from the imperial throne, once punished a cook who had sent up to him an ill-dressed capon by roasting him on a spit before his own fire. The story, as Dr. Doran says,[24]“might be held to be groundless, were it not that of petty German potentates there are similar stories told which are well authenticated.” But a tragic occurrence of a different character happened in the reign of Louis XIV., who was devoted to gastronomy, and for whose use liqueurs were invented in his old age when, it is said, he could scarcely endure existence withouta succession of artificial stimulants. The closing scene of Vatel has often been told, who, to quote the words of theAlmanach des Gourmands, “immolated himself with his own hands because the sea-fish had not arrived some hours before it was to be served. So noble a death ensures you, venerable shade, the most glorious immortality. You have proved that the fanaticism of honour can exist in the kitchen as well as in the camp, and that the spit and the saucepan have also their Catos and Deciuses.” Madame de Sévigny, narrating this pathetic instance of self-devotion, thus writes:—
“I wrote you yesterday that Vatel had killed himself. I here give you the affair in detail. The King arrived on the evening of the Thursday; the collation was served in a room hung with jonquils; all was as could be wished. At supper there were some tables where the roast was wanting, on account of several parties which had not been expected. This affected Vatel. He said several times, ‘I am dishonoured; this is a disgrace that I cannot endure.’ He said to Gourville, ‘My head is dizzy; I have not slept for twelve nights; assist me in giving orders.’ Gourville assisted him as much as he could. The roast which had been wanting, not at the table of the King, but at the inferior tables, was constantly present to his mind. Gourville mentioned it to the Prince; the Prince even went to the chamber of Vatel and said to him, ‘Vatel, all is going well; nothing could equal the supper of the King.’ He replied, ‘Monseigneur, your goodness overpowers me; I know that the roast was wanting at two tables.’ ‘Nothing of the sort,’ said the Prince; ‘do not distress yourself, all is going on well.’ Night came; the fireworks failed; they had cost sixteen thousand francs. He rose at four the next morning, determined to attend to everything in person. He found everybody asleep. He meets one of the inferior purveyors, who brought only two packages of sea-fish; he asks, ‘Is that all?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ The man was not aware that Vatel had sent to all the seaports. Vatel waits some time; the other purveyors did not arrive; his brain began to burn; he believed that there would be no more fish. He finds Gourville; he says to him, ‘Monsieur, I shall never survive this disgrace.’ Gourville made light of it. Vatel goes upstairs to his room, places his sword against the door, and stabs himself to the heart; but it was not until the third blow, after giving himself two not mortal, that he fell dead. The fish, however, arrives from all quarters; they seek Vatel to distribute it; they go to his room, they knock, they force open the door; he is found bathed in his blood. They hasten to tell the Prince, who is in despair. The Duke wept; it was on Vatel that his journey from Burgundy hinged. The Prince related what had passed to the King with marks of the deepest sorrow.”[25]
Amidst his other luxuries, Louis XV. was notunmindful of the pleasures of the table, and it is generally understood thattables volanteswere invented under his eye. “At thepetits soupersof Choisy,” says the poet Rogers, “were first introduced those admirable pieces of mechanism—a table and a sideboard which descended and rose again covered with viands and wines. And thus the most luxurious Court in Europe, after all its boastful refinements, was glad to return at last, by its singular contrivance, to the quiet and privacy of humble life.” Louis XVI., on the other hand, is said to have been somewhat neglectful of his table, a circumstance which, it has been remarked, “was utterly inexcusable, since for a time the great Ude was a member of his establishment.”
But Louis XVIII. was an epicure of the first water, and was nicknamed “Des-huitres” (a pun ondix-huit), because like all the Bourbons he was a great feeder, and especially fond of oysters. One day, when his physician reproached his cook with “ruining the royal health by savoury juices, the dignitary of the kitchen remarked that it was the office of the cook to supply his Majesty with pleasant dishes, and that it was the duty of the doctor to enable the King to digest them.”[26]He had the Duc d’Escars for hisgrand maître d’hôtel, a disappointed man, however, as he died inconsolable at not having given his name to a single dish after having devoted his whole life to the culinary art. He did not lose the confidence of his royal master, with whom, when he was closeted to discuss some new dish, the ministers were kept waiting in the antechamber, and the next day the following announcement regularly appeared in the official journals: “M. le Duc d’Escars a travaillé dans le Cabinet.” The fate of M. d’Escars was the harder because he died a victim to gastronomy. It appears that Louis XVIII. had invented thetruffes à la purée d’ortolans, and, reluctant to disclose the secret to an unreliable menial, he invariably prepared the dish with his own hands, assisted by the Duc. On one occasion they had conjointly prepared a dish of more than ordinary dimensions, and duly consumed the whole of it. In the middle of the night the Duc was seized with a fit of indigestion, and his case was declared hopeless. Loyal to the last, he ordered an attendant to awake and inform the King, who might be exposed to a similar attack. His Majesty was roused and told that the Duc was dying of his invention. “Dying!” exclaimed Louis; “dying of mytruffes à la purée? I was right then. I always said that I had the better stomach of the two!”
Thepetits soupersof the Regent Duke of Orleans were famous, and conferred a celebrity on the scene of them sufficient to justify the reply of the Frenchman who, on being asked by a stranger in a remote part of Europe if he could tell him the direction of Paris, made answer: “Monsieur, ce chemin-là vous conduira au Palais Royal.” There is a vague traditionthat the chef of the Regent was pre-eminent in adinde aux truffes.
The Revolution in France bade fair to seriously check the progress of the culinary art, and “the destruction of the pre-existing races of Amphitryons and diners-out was actually and most efficiently accomplished by it.” But eventually the upstart chiefs of the Republic and the plundering marshals and parvenu nobles of Napoleon proved, as far as gastronomy was concerned, no bad substitutes for the old feudal nobility. When Napoleon was in good humour at the result of a diplomatic conference, he was in the habit of taking leave of the plenipotentiaries with, “Go and dine with Cambacérès,” who was second consul under the Republic and arch-chancellor under the Empire—a man who never allowed the cares of government to distract his attention from what he conceived to be the great object of life. His table was, in fact, an important state-engine, as appears from the anecdote of the Genevese trout sent to him by the municipality of Geneva, and charged 300 francs in their accounts. The imperialCour des Comptes, having disallowed the item, was interdicted from meddling with municipal affairs in future. Among the many stories told of Cambacérès, it is said that on one occasion, being detained in consultation with Napoleon beyond the appointed hour of dinner, when the fate of the Duc d’Enghien was the topic under discussion, he was observed to grow restless and impatient. At last he wrote a note, the contents of which Napoleon suspecting,nodded to an aide-de-camp to intercept the despatch, which he found to be a note to the cook, conveying this message: “Gardez les entremets—les rôtis sont perdus.”
Napoleon himself was a very fast eater, and at agrand couvertat the Tuileries, from the moment he and his guests sat down till coffee was served, not more than forty-three minutes elapsed. They were then bowed out. It was a rule, too, with Napoleon that the moment appetite was felt, it should be satisfied; and his establishment was so arranged that at all hours chicken, cutlets, and coffee might be forthcoming at a word. But this habit of eating fast and carelessly is commonly supposed to have paralysed him “on two of the most critical occasions of his life—the battles of Borodino and Leipsic, which he might have converted into decisive victories by pushing his advantages as he was wont. On each of these occasions he is known to have been suffering from indigestion.” On the third day of Dresden, too, the German novelist, Hoffman, who was present in the town, asserts that the Emperor would have done much more than he did, but for the effects of a shoulder of mutton stuffed with onions.
The general order to his household was to have cutlets and roast chicken ready at all hours, night and day, a rule which was carefully observed by hismaître d’hôtel, Dunand, who had been a celebrated cook. One day when Napoleon returned from theConseil d’Etat in one of his worst tempers, adéjeuner à la fourchette, comprising his favourite dishes, was served up, and Napoleon, who had fasted since daybreak, took his seat. But he had scarcely partaken of a mouthful when “apparently some inopportune thought or recollection stung his brain to madness,” and, receding from the table without rising from his chair, he uplifted his foot—dash! went the table, crash! went thedéjeuner, and the Emperor springing up paced the room with rapid strides. Dunand looked on, and quick as thought the wreck was cleared away, an exact duplicate of thedéjeunerappeared as if by magic, and its presence was quietly announced by the customary, “Sa Majesté est servie.” Napoleon felt the delicacy, and “Merci bien, mon cher Dunand,” with one of his inimitable smiles, showed that the hurricane had blown over.
Prince Henry of Condé, in addition to his many other faults, was accused of being too fond of his ease, and when he was reproached with his immoderate taste for the pleasures of the table, he was wont to say, in a dull way, “They affirm that I am always at eating-houses since I left Paris; I have been there only twice.”
Another epicure of a high order was Frederick the Great, who was extremely fond of highly seasoned meats and French or Italian made dishes. Every morning, and sometimes the evening before, the bill of fare was presented to him, which he oftenaltered himself; and during dinner he would make pencil marks against the different items of the bill of fare, which he discussed afterwards with themaître d’hôtel. In a kitchen account of the year 1784, it was stated that the extra consumption amounted to 25 dollars, 10 groschen, 1⅕ pfennig; but Frederick wrote under it: “Robbery, for there were about one hundred oysters on the table, price 4 dollars; cakes, 2 dollars; liver, 1 dollar; fish, 2 dollars; Russian cakes, 2 dollars—total, 11 dollars. As there has been an extra dish to-day, herrings and peas, which may cost 1 dollar, everything beyond 12 dollars is barefaced robbery.”[27]
The King kept at all times a sharp look out, and one day he remarked to his Minister of State, Von Herder, after reprimanding a servant who had put a bottle of wine in his pocket: “Have I not every reason to knock these ragamuffins on the head? Don’t you see that if I let them have their own rascally way I should soon not have a penny left to assist my distressed subjects.” His table was generally served with eight dishes—four French, two Italian, and two prepared according to his peculiar fancy, and from his own receipts. And it was one of his favourite maxims that “he who is not content with eight dishes will not be satisfied with eighty.” One of the last bills of fare—August 5, 1786—twelve days before his death, was as follows:—
August 5.—Dinner: His Majesty’s Table
On the other hand, Frederick William I. was served in the plainest manner, partly with the coarsest food, such as bacon and peas, or ham and green kale—his favourite dish. His two special fish were lobsters and oysters. There is still the draught of a bill of fare in existence which Frederick William gave as an example to the Crown Prince, when the latter was at Cüstrin:—
But the pertinacity with which Charles V. of Spain gratified his appetite, under all circumstances, rivalled even that of Frederick the Great. It is said that before rising in the morning, potted capon was usually served to him, prepared with sugar, milk, and spices, after partaking of which he would turn to sleep again. At noon he dined on a variety of dishes, soon after vespers he partook of another meal, and later in the evening he supped heartily on anchovies, or some other savoury food; and after his abdication the same propensity accompanied him to his monastic retreat at Yuste. Fish of every kind was his taste—eels, frogs, and oysters occupying an important place in the royal bill of fare. Potted fish, especially anchovies, found special favour with him, and on an eel pasty he particularly doted. Soles, lampreys, and flounders were sent in large quantities from Seville and Portugal. The nobles in the neighbourhood, who knew his weakness for the pleasures of the table, constantly sent him presents of game and vegetables, and the churchmen were equally attentive. The Prior of our Lady of Guadalupe, the Archbishop of Saragossa, the Bishop of Plasencia, and the Archbishop of Toledo were liberal in their contributions. To wash down this extraordinary quantity of food, Charles drank in proportion. And Sastrow, who saw Charles V. at the Diet of Augsburg in the year 1546, states in his “Pomeranian Chronicle”: “His dinner was served by young princes and counts, four courses always of six dishes each. The dishes being placed before him, the coverswere removed, and he shook his head at those of which he did not wish to partake; but if he fancied one he nodded, and drew it towards him. Goodly pasties, venison, and savoury-made dishes were sometimes taken away, while he kept back a sucking pig, calf’s head, or such like. He had no one to carve for him, nor did he use the knife much himself; but he first cut his bread in small pieces, then stuck his knife into the joint where he fancied a piece, scooped it out, or otherwise tore it with his fingers.”[28]
He was just turned thirty when his confessor, Cardinal Loaysa, wrote to him to urge him to leave off eating fish, which always disagreed with him, and he added, “I am told that your chest can often be heard farther off than your tongue.” Subsequent letters from the same honest counsellor contain many similar warnings, one of which closes with these words: “If your Majesty will give the reins to your appetite, I tell you that your conscience and bodily health must go down-hill.”
But these gastronomic excesses brought on intense suffering, nor did experience teach him moderation. With few teeth and impaired digestion, he “continued to eat from as many dishes, and to empty as many flasks, as in the days when his powers were great, his health flourishing, and his exercise regular. His medical men were his abettors, for they allowed him to satisfy every appetite, without attempting to restrain him.”[29]And it wasby a strange irony of fate that when Death began to close his jaws upon the Emperor, there were those in his vicinity “who were suffering from a worse vertigo than that which springs from old age and an abused stomach—the vertigo of famine. In their sufferings the hungry peasantry forgot their respect for him. They stripped his kitchen-garden, plundered his orchards, impounded his cattle, drew the fish from his ponds, and waylaid and rifled his mules which traversed the hunger-district laden with dainties.”
Peter the Great was another very decided epicure, and one of his favourite dinners was the following: A soup with four cabbages in it, gruel, pig, with sour cream for sauce, cold roast meat, with pickled cucumbers or salad, lemons and lamprey, salt meat, ham, and Limburg cheese. And, it may be added, there is preserved in Ballard’s Collection in the Bodleian Library the bill of fare of a breakfast and dinner, which the Czar and his party—twenty-one in number—partook of at Godalming on his return from a visit to Portsmouth, consisting at breakfast of half a sheep, a quarter of lamb, ten pullets, twelve chickens, seven dozen of eggs, and salad in proportion, three quarts of brandy and six quarts of mulled wine; at dinner, five ribs of beef, weight three stone; one sheep, fifty-six pounds; three quarters of lamb, a shoulder and loin of veal boiled, eight pullets, eight rabbits; two dozen and a half of sack, and one dozen of claret. But, as it has been remarked, some of our own countrymen have almost rivalled the Czar and his companions. At Godalming—probably at the same inn that Peter the Great patronised—two nobles, dukes, are reported to have stopped, as they intended, for a few minutes, while sitting in their carriages, to eat a mutton chop, which they found so good that they devoured eighteen chops, and drank five bottles of claret.
Catherine II. of Russia did not care for elaborate cookery: her favourite dish was boiled beef with salted cucumber; her drink, water with gooseberry syrup. Among her cooks there was one who cooked abominably; but, when this was pointed out to her, “she refused to dismiss the man, as he had been in her service too long.” She merely inquired when his turn came, and on sitting down to table would say, “Ladies and gentlemen, we must exercise our patience, we have a week’s fast before us.”[30]
An enthusiastic epicure was the Polish King, Stanislaus Leczinski, who invented many a new dish, and succeeded in vastly improving the style of cooking, astonishing the Lorrainers, amongst other things, by having served up at his table dishes of meat with fruits, both of which had been cooked together. Geese which had been plucked when alive, then whipped to death, andmarinéeswere set down in his bill of fare as foreign birds; and after a similar fashion turkeys were metamorphosed intocoqs de bruyères, and were served at table buried under the strong-smelling herbs of Lorraine. One year was remarkable for the entire failure of the fruit crop, but Stanislaus would not be deprived of his dessert; for, turning his attentionto confectionery, he made delicate compositions of sugared vegetables, especially turnips, and even now the Lorrainers dip theirbabas—cakes in which there areraisins de caisseand saffron—into their wine, and think of the royal inventor.
The story goes that on one occasion there appeared on the table of Stanislaus a large pie, and the guests were admiring its dimensions, beauty, and odour, when all of a sudden the almond cakes which covered it flew in all directions, and from beneath them leaped up Bébé, the ex-king’s favourite dwarf, armed like a knight. The whole table was in a roar of laughter, with the exception of one noble guest, whose nose the dwarf had pricked with his lance, and who vowed vengeance for the two or three drops of blood which fell. But, it is said, Stanislaus loved his dwarf so well that he provided for his security by placing him under the care of two soldiers of his bodyguard.
Then again, Ferdinand I. of Naples was an epicure in fruit, and was wont to pride himself on the excellent varieties which were produced in his royal gardens, one of which was designated “Paradise.” Many years ago, too, Prince Metternich first tasted rhubarb in this country, and was so delighted with it that he had some plants sent to his Austrian garden. On the occasion of a large party in the following year, the Prince ordered rhubarb to be served up dressed as it was in this country. But the cook knew nothing of the English mode of cooking it, and selecting the large leaves served them up as spinach. As might beexpected, the guests made wry faces at this unsavoury dish, and henceforth rhubarb was discarded from the Prince’s table. And, it may remembered, Ludovico, the Duke of Milan, carried this kind of epicurean luxury so far that he actually had a travelling fruit garden, the trees being brought to his table that he might gratify his taste by gathering the fruit with his own hands. Charles XII. of Sweden was often satisfied with simple bread and butter, and Joseph II. of Austria with omelets and hard bread.
Don Sebastian of Portugal, being no epicure himself, determined to train his people by issuing a sumptuary edict that none of his subjects might have more than two dishes, and those of the simplest character, for their meals; but he forgot that no decree could alter the daily life of his people.
Bianca of Milan, whom Maximilian the “Moneyless” married for her dowry, died of indigestion brought on by eating too freely of snails—“the large and lively sort,” reared for the market in the fierce heat below. Royal fatalities of this kind have been numerous. Thus in 1740 Charles, the brother and successor of Joseph I., not only went out hunting in the wet when he had the gout, but persisted in eating voraciously of mushrooms stewed in oil. Like Louis Philippe, he would not believe his medical advisers as they stood at his bedside “disputing as to whether mushrooms were a digestible diet or the contrary;” but, dismissing them from his presence, he ordered hisfavourite delicacy, the penalty for eating which was his death.
Among our early kings who in some measure patronised the culinary art may be mentioned Richard Cœur de Lion, who loved venison, “the stealers of which he punished by the most horrible of mutilations;” while his brother John, who was equally fond of venison, is reported to have given great offence to certain clerical gentlemen by a joke at dinner upon a fat haunch, which, he said, “had come from a noble hart that had never heard mass,” which was regarded as a reflection on their corpulency.
Edward III. paid every attention to good cheer; and as many as two thousand cooks are said to have been employed in the royal kitchen of Richard II., his chiefcuisinierhaving been known by the initials C. S. S., under which he wrote a culinary work, “On the Forme of Cury,” in which Richard II. is spoken of as his royal master, “the best and royallest viander of all Christian kynges.”
A porpoise was a fashionable dish in the time of Henry V., who first had it at the royal table, and England, it is said, had never seen a king who gave dinners on so extravagantly profuse a scale as Edward IV.[31]
Henry VIII. was an epicure, and a liberal rewarder “of that sort of merit which ministered to the gratification” of his palate, on one occasion having been so well pleased with the flavour of a new pudding that he gave a manor to the inventor.It may be added that Cardinal Campeggio—one of the legates charged to treat with Henry VIII. concerning his divorce from Catherine—drew up a report on the state of the English cookery, as compared with that of Italy and France, for the special use of the Pope.
Anne Boleyn appears to have been very much of an epicure, and when staying, in the year 1527, at Windsor, Henry sent her by Heneage, who was the gentleman-in-waiting, a dish from his own table for supper; and yet even that did not content her, for all the time, it is said, she was hankering after Wolsey’s dainties, and expressing her wish “for some of his good meat, as carpes, shrimpes, and other delicacies.” And when in the year 1535 Viscountess Lisle, who was ambitious of obtaining appointments for two of her daughters in the royal household, sent her some dotterels, which were at that time esteemed a dainty dish, and calculated to tickle the palate of an epicure queen, she received from a friend the following note: “The Queen did appoint six of your dotterels for her supper, six for Monday dinner, and six for supper. My Lord of Rochford presented them himself, and showed her how they were killed new at twelve of the clock in Dover, of the which she was glad, and spake many good words towards your ladyship’s good report, as I was informed by them that stood by.”[32]
As for the royal table of Elizabeth, nothing could surpass the solemn order in which it was laid out, or the number of triple genuflections which accompanied every movement of the noble waiters; but all this was only for show, as the meat was finally taken off the table into an inner room, where the Queen herself dined in the utmost privacy and simplicity.[33]Her Sunday’s dinner on the 19th of November 1576 consisted of beef, mutton, veal, swan, goose, capons, conies, friants, custards, and fritters for the first course. For the second, lamb, kid, herons, pheasant, fowls, godwits, peacocks, larks, tarts, and fritters.
Her average dinner was varied with plovers, veal pies, custards, boiled partridges, boiled beef, snipes, pheasants, chicken pies, and tarts, and cost on an average £4 a dinner.
Her fish dinners were of great variety. The first course included long pike, salmon, haddock, whiting, gurnet, tench, and brill; the second, sturgeon, conger, carp, eels, lamperns, chine of salmon, perch, lobster, tarts, and creams; the side dishes were sturgeon, porpoise, fish collops and eggs, dories, soles and lampern pies, cod, boiled conger, bream, and red fish; the second course occasionally included warden pie, smelts, boiled veal, boiled mutton, pullets, partridges, and panado.
In the succeeding reign feasting was carried to a riotous extent, and it has been computed that the household expenditure of James I. was twice as much as that of Queen Elizabeth, amounting to £100,000 a year. A pig was an animal of which James had an abhorrence, and in his “Counterblast to Tobacco” he says, that were he to invitethe devil to dinner he would place three dishes before him—first, a pig; secondly, a poll of ling and mustard; and thirdly, a pipe of tobacco to assist digestion. The state of cookery under Charles II. is indicated by the names of Chiffinch and Chaubert, to whose skill Sir Walter Scott has borne testimony in his “Peveril of the Peak.” But it is questionable whether epicures of the present day would appreciate the Duke of York’s taste, who, when instructed by the Spanish ambassador to prepare a sauce, recommended one consisting of parsley, dried toast pounded in a mortar, with vinegar, salt, and pepper. Charles II., however, if not a decided epicure, was fond of gastronomy, and in a ballad of the “New Sir John Barleycorn,” the knighting of the loin of beef has been ascribed to him:—