racter
by the different distribution of the daily repasts, so that, instead
of being the earliest regular meal, like the _grand dejeuner_ of the
French, or coming, like our luncheon, between breakfast and dinner, it
interposed itself between the noontide dinner and the evening supper.
Now, with an increasing proportion of the community, the universal
luncheon, postponed to a later hour, is the actual dinner; and our
under-meal is the afternoon tea.

In those not-wholly-to-be-discommended days, the residue of the meal
was consumed in the servants' hall, and the scraps bestowed on the
poor at the gate; and the last part of the business was carried out,
not as a matter of chance or caprice, but on as methodical a principle
as the payment of a poor-rate. At the servants' table, besides the
waiters and other attendants on the principal board, mentioned by
Harrison, sat the master-cook, the pantler, the steward or major-domo,
the butler, the cellarman, the waferer, and others. It was not till
comparatively recent times that the _wafery_, a special department of
the royal kitchen, where the confectionery and pastry were prepared,
was discontinued.

There was necessarily a very large section of the community in all
the large towns, especially in London, which was destitute of culinary
appliances, and at the same time of any charitable or eleemosynary
privileges. A multitude of persons, of both sexes and all ages,
gradually developed itself, having no feudal ties, but attached to an
endless variety of more or less humble employments.

How did all these men, women, boys, girls, get their daily food? The
answer is, in the public eating-houses. Fitzstephen tells us that
in the reign of Henry II. (1154-89), besides the wine-vaults and the
shops which sold liquors, there was on the banks of the river a public
eating-house or cook's-shop, where, according to the time of year, you
could get every kind of victuals, roasted, boiled, baked, or fried;
and even, says he, if a friend should arrive at a citizen's house, and
not care to wait, they go to the shop, where there were viands always
kept ready to suit every purse and palate, even including venison,
sturgeon, and Guinea-fowls. For all classes frequented the City; and
before Bardolph's day noblemen and gentlemen came to Smithfield to buy
their horses, as they did to the waterside near the Tower to embark
for a voyage.

One of the characters in the "Canterbury Tales"--the Cook of