r head, too indignant for words; and the
stock-jobber, in the bitterness of his soul, affirmed, with a meaning
air, "that he dared say, after all, that the old gentleman was not so
rich as he gave out."

On entering Talbot's drawing-room, Clarence found about seven or eight
people assembled; their names, in proclaiming the nature of the party,
indicated that the aim of the host was to combine aristocracy and
talent. The literary acquirements and worldly tact of Talbot, joined
to the adventitious circumstances of birth and fortune, enabled him to
effect this object, so desirable in polished society, far better than
we generally find it effected now. The conversation of these guests was
light and various. The last bon mot of Chesterfield, the last sarcasm
of Horace Walpole, Goldsmith's "Traveller," Shenstone's "Pastorals," and
the attempt of Mrs. Montagu to bring Shakspeare into fashion,--in all
these subjects the graceful wit and exquisite taste of Talbot shone
pre-eminent; and he had almost succeeded in convincing a profound critic
that Gray was a poet more likely to live than Mason, when the servant
announced supper.

That was the age of suppers! Happy age! Meal of ease and mirth; when
Wine and Night lit the lamp of Wit! Oh, what precious things were said
and looked at those banquets of the soul! There epicurism was in the
lip as well as the palate, and one had humour for a hors d'oeuvre and
repartee for an entremet. At dinner there is something too pompous, too
formal, for the true ease of Table Talk. One's intellectual appetite,
like the physical, is coarse but dull. At dinner one is fit only for
eating; after dinner only for politics. But supper was a glorious relic
of the ancients. The bustle of the day had thoroughly wound up the
spirit, and every stroke upon the dial-plate of wit was true to the
genius of the hour. The wallet of diurnal anecdote was full, and craved
unloading. The great meal--that vulgar first love of the appetite--was
over, and one now only flattered it into coquetting with another.
The mind, disengaged and free, was no longer absorbed in a cutlet or
burdened with a joint. The gourmand carried the nicety of his physical
perception to his moral, and applauded a bon mot instead of a bonne
bouche.

Then, too, one had no necessity to keep a reserve of thought for the
after evening; supper was the final consummation, the glorious funeral
pyre of day. One could be merry till bedtime without an inte