is scarcely in his vocabulary,--like Beau Brummel and
the farthing--"Fellow, I do not know the coin!"

In a glossary of the tenth-eleventh century only two meals are quoted:
undermeat = _prandium_, and even-meat = _coena_. That is to say, our
Saxon precursors were satisfied as a rule with two repasts daily, but
to this in more luxurious times were added the supper and even the
rear-supper, the latter being, so far as we know, a second course or
dessert and the bipartite collation corresponding to the modern late
dinner. But it is one of those strange survivals of ancient manners
which people practise without any consciousness of the fact, which
is at the root of the fashion, which still occasionally prevails,
of dividing the chief meal of the day by an interval of repose, and
taking the wine and dessert an hour or two after the other courses;
and the usage in our colleges and inns of court of retiring to another
apartment to "wine" may claim the same origin. It is obvious that the
rear-supper was susceptible of becoming the most important and costly
part of an entertainment; and that it frequently assumed extravagant
proportions, many passages from our early poets might be adduced to
prove.

In the "Book of Cookery," 1500, we have the _menu_ at the installation
of Archbishop Nevill in York in 1467; but the bill of fare of a
feast given by him in 1452 at Oxford, where he is mentioned as Master
Nevill, son of the Earl of Salisbury, is inserted from the Cotton MS.
Titus, in "Reliquiae Antiquae," 1841. It consisted of three courses,
which seem to have been the customary limit. Of course, however, the
usage varied, as in the "Song of the Boar's Head," of which there are
two or three versions, two courses only are specified in what has the
air of having been a rather sumptuous entertainment.

The old low-Latin term for the noonday meal was _merenda_, which
suggests the idea of food to be earned before it was enjoyed. So in
"Friar Bacon's Prophesie," 1604, a poem, it is declared that, in the
good old days, he that wrought not, till he sweated, was held
unworthy of his meat. This reminds one of Abernethy's maxim for the
preservation of health,--to live on sixpence a day, _and earn it_.

The "Song of the Boar's Head," just cited, and printed from the
Porkington MS. in "Reliquiae Antiquae" (ii, 30), refers to larks for
ladies to pick as part of the second course in a banquet. On special
occasions, in the middle ages, after th