 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Robert Scott. Miscellaneous Essays by Thomas DeQuincy. Section 15. Dinner. Real and Reputed. Part 2. These are the anchors by which man rides into that billowy ocean between morning and night. The first anchor, vis, breakfast, having given way in Rome, the more needed there is that he should pull up by the second. And this is often reputed to be dinner, as your dictionary, good reader, translated breakfast by that vain word, Gentaculum, so doubtless it will translate dinner by that still veneer word, Prandium. Sincerely we hope that your own dinner on this day, and through all time coming, may have a better root in fact and substance than this most visionary of all baseless things, the Roman Prandium, of which we shall presently show that the most approved translation is Moonshine. Reader, we are not justing here. In the very spirit of serious truth, we assure you that the delusion about, quote, Gentaculum is even extended by this other delusion about, quote, Prandium. Salmaceous himself, for whom a natural prejudice of place and time, partially obscured the truth, admits, however, that Prandium was a meal which the ancients rarely took. His very words are, quote, Rero Prandibot Beteris, end quote. Now judge for yourself of the good sense which is shown in translating the word dinner, which must of necessity mean the chief meal, a Roman word which represents a fancy meal, a meal of Caprice, a meal which few people took. At this moment, what is the single point of agreement between the noon meal of the English laborer and the evening meal of the English gentleman? What is the single circumstance common to both, which causes us to denominate them by the common name of dinner? It is that in both we recognize the principal meal of the day, the meal upon which is thrown the onus of the day's support. In everything else, they are as wide as Sunder as the Poles. But they agree in this one point of their function. Is it credible that to represent such a meal amongst ourselves, we select a Roman word so notoriously expressing a mere shadow, a pure apology, that very few people ever tasted it? Nobody sat down to it. Not many washed their hands after it, and gradually the very name of it became interchangeable with one another, implying the slightest possible act of trying or sipping. Quote, post lauretionum, sign, mensa, prandium, end quote, says Seneca, quote, post quodnan, sought, lavande, manus, end quote. This is, quote, after bathing, I take a prandium without sitting down to the table, and such a prandium as being after itself, no need of washing the hands, end quote. No moonshine as little soils the hands as it oppresses the stomach. Reader, we as well as Pliny have an uncle, an East Indian uncle, doubtless you have such an uncle, everybody has an Indian uncle. Generally, such a person is, quote, rather yellow, rather yellow, end quote. Note, to quote Canning versus Lord Dunham. That is the chief fault with his physics, but as to his morals, he is universally a man of princely aspirations and habits. He is not so orientally rich as he is reputed, but he is always orientally munificent. Call upon him, at any hour, from two to five, he insists on your taking, typhon, and such a typhon. The English corresponding term is luncheon, but how meager a shadow is the European meal to its glowing Asiatic cousin. Still gloriously, as typhon shines, does anybody imagine that it is a vicarious dinner or even meant to be the substitute of dinner? Wait till eight, and you will have your eyes opened on that subject. So of the Roman prandium had it been as luxurious as it was simple, still it was always viewed as something meant only to stay the stomach as a prologue to something beyond. The prandium was far enough from giving the feeblest idea of the English luncheon, yet it stood in the same relation to the Roman day. Now, to English men, the meal scarcely exists, and were it not for women whose delicacy of organization does not allow them to fast so long as men would probably be abolished. It is singular in this, as in other points, how nearly England and ancient Rome approximate. We all know how hard it is to tempt a man generally into spoiling his appetite by eating before dinner, the same dislike of violating what they call the integrity of the appetite. Note, integrum femem existed at Rome. Every man who knows anything of Latin critically sees the connection of the word integer with in and tetaguy, integer, means what is intact, unviolated by touch. Cicero, when protesting against spoiling his appetite for dinner, by tasting anything beforehand, says, integrum femem ad coenem afaram. I shall bring to dinner an appetite untampered with. Nay, so much stress did the Romans lay on maintaining this primitive state of appetite undisturbed, that any preludions with either genticulum or prandium were said by a very strong phrase indeed. Poulere femem. To pollute the sanctity of the appetite, the appetite was regarded as a holy vessel flame, soaring upwards towards dinner throughout the day. It tended to its natural consummation in coena, expired like a phoenix to rise again out of its own ashes. On this theory, to which language had accommodated itself, the two preclusive meals of nine o'clock a.m. and of one p.m. so far from being ratified by the public sense and adopted into the economy of the day, were regarded gloomily as gross irregularities, enormities, debauchers of the natural instinct, and, in so far as they thwarted that instinct, lessened it, or depraved it, were universally held to be full of pollution, and finally, too, profane a motion of nature. Such was the language. But we guess what is passing in the reader's mind. He thinks that all this proves the prandium to have been a meal of little account, and in very many cases, absolutely unknown. But still he thinks all this might happen to the English dinner. That might be neglected. Supper might be generally preferred, and, nevertheless, dinner would be as truly entitled to the name of dinner as before. Many a student neglects his dinner. Enthusiasm, in any pursuit, must often have extinguished appetite for all of us. Many a time, and off did this happen to Sir Isaac Newton, evidences on record that such a deponent, at eight o'clock a.m., found Sir Isaac, with one stocking on, one off, at two, said Depondit, called him to dinner. Being interrogated, whether Sir Isaac had pulled on the minus stocking, or gartered the plus stocking, witness replied that he had not. Being asked if Sir Isaac came to dinner, replied that he did not. Being again asked, quote, at sunset, did you look at Sir Isaac, unquote, witness replied, quote, I did, and now upon your conscience, sir, by the virtue of your oath, in what state were the stockings, end quote. Answer, quote, instead of quote, antebellum, end quote. It seems Sir Isaac had fought through the whole battle of a long day, so trying a campaign to many people, he had traversed the whole Sandy-Zara without calling, or needing to call, at one of those fountains, stages, or mansiones, footnote to follow, by which, note, according to our former explanation, Providence has relieved the continuity of arid soil. Which else defigures that long dreary level? Footnote, mansiones, the halts of the Roman legions, the stationary places of repose, which divided the marches, were so called, end footnote. This happens to all, but was dinner not dinner, and did supper become dinner? Because Sir Isaac Newton ate nothing at the first, and threw the whole day's support upon the last? No, you will say. A rule is not defeated by one casual deviation, nor by one person's constant deviation. Everybody else was still dining at two, though Sir Isaac might not. And Sir Isaac himself, on most days, no more deferred his dinner beyond two, than he sat with one stocking off. But what if everybody, Sir Isaac included, had deferred his substantial meal until night, and taken a slight refection, only at two? The question put, does really represent the very case which has happened with us in England. In 1700, a large part of London took a meal at two p.m., and another at seven or eight p.m. In 1839, a large part of London is still doing the very same thing, taking one meal at two, and another at seven or eight. But the names are entirely changed. The two o'clock meal used to be called dinner, and is now called luncheon. The eight o'clock meal used to be called supper, and is now called dinner. Now, the question is easily solved, because upon reviewing the idea of dinner, we should perceive that time has little or no connection with it. Since, both in England and France, dinner has traveled, like the hand of a clock, through every hour between ten a.m. and ten p.m. We have a list, well-attested, of every successive hour between these limits, having been the known established hour for the royal dinner table, within the last 350 years. Time, therefore, vanishes from the equation. It is a quantity as regularly exterminated as any algebraic problem. The true elements of the idea are evidently these. One, that dinner is that meal, no matter when taken, which is the principal meal. I.e., the meal on which the day's support is thrown. Two, that it is the meal of hospitality. Three, that it is the meal, note with reference to both numbers one and two, in which animal food predominates. Four, that it is that meal which, upon necessity, arising from the abolition of all but one, would naturally offer itself as the one. Apply these four tests to prandium. How could that meal answer to the first test as the day's support, which few people touched? How could that meal answer to the second test as the meal of hospitality at which nobody sat down? How could that meal answer to the third test as the meal of animal food which consisted exclusively and notoriously of bread, or to the fourth test of the meal entitled to survive the abolition of the rest, which was itself, at all times, in practice? Tried therefore by every test, prandium vanishes, but we have something further to communicate about the same prandium. One, it came to pass by a very natural association of feeling that prandium and genticulum in the latter centuries of Rome were generally confounded. The result was inevitable. Both professed the same basis. Both came in the morning. Both were fictions. Hence they were confounded. The fact speaks for itself. Breakfast and luncheon never could have been confounded. But who would be at the pains of distinguishing two shadows? In a gambling house of that class, where you are at liberty to sit down to a splendid banquet, anxiety probably prevents your sitting down at all. But if you do, the same cause prevents your noticing what you eat. So of the two, pseudo, meals of Rome, they came in the very midst of the Roman business, vis, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nobody could give his mind to them had they been of better quality. There lay one cause of their vagueness, vis, in their position. Another cause was the common basis of both. Bread was so notoriously the predominating, quote, feature in each of these pre-lusive banquets that all foreigners at Rome, who communicated with Romans through the Greek language, knew both the one and the other by the name of note, Greek, Artositos. Or the bread repast. Originally this name had been restricted to the earlier meal, but a distinction without a difference could not sustain itself, and both alike disguised their emptiness under this pompous quadrosillable. In the identity of substance, therefore, lay a second ground of confusion. And then, thirdly, even as the time which had ever been the sole real distinction, there arose from accident a tendency to converge. For it happened that while some had Gentaculum, but no Prandium, others had Prandium, but no Gentaculum. A third party had both. A fourth party, by much the largest, had neither. Out of which varieties, note, who would think that a non-entity could be cut up into so many somethings? A rose a fifth party of compromisers. Who, because they could not afford a regular coena, and yet were hospitably disposed, fused the two ideas into one, and so, because the usual time for the idea of a breakfast was nine to ten, and for the idea of a luncheon, twelve to one, comprised the rival pretensions by what diplomists call a mesotermine, bisecting the time at eleven, and melting the two ideas into one. But, by this merging the separate times of each, they abolished the sole real difference that had ever divided them. Losing that, they lost all. Perhaps as two negatives make one affirmative, it may be thought that two layers of moonshine might coalesce into one pancake, and two barmaside banquets might compose one poached egg. Of that, the company were the best judges, but probably, as a rump and dozen in our land of wagers, is construed with a very liberal attitude as the materials saw Marshall's invitation, quote, to take bread with him at eleven, end quote, might be understood by the note Greek sunetoi, as significant of something better than note Greek artositos. Otherwise, in good truth, quote, moonshine and turn out, end quote, at eleven a.m., would be even worse than, quote, tea and turn out, end quote, at eight p.m., which the, quote, fervita juventus, end quote, of young England so loudly detests. But however that might be, in this convergement of the several frontiers, and the confusion that ensued, one cannot wonder that, wilts the two bladders collapsed into one idea, they actually expanded into four names, two Latin and two Greek, Gustus and Gustadio. Note Greek, geisus, and note Greek, geisuma, which all alike, express the merely tentative or exploratory act of a pregustator, or professional, quote, taster, in a king's household, what if applied to a fluid, we should denominate sipping. At last, by so many steps, all in one direction, things had come to such a pass, the two prelusive meals of the Roman morning, each for itself, separately vague from the beginning, had so communicated, and interfused their several and joint vagueness, that at last no man knew, or cared to know, what any other man included in his idea of either. How much, or how little. And, you might as well have hunted in the woods of Ethiopia for Prestor John, or fixed the parish of the everlasting Jew, footnote to follow, as have attempted to say what, quote, Gentaculum might be, or what, quote, Prandium. Footnote, quote, the everlasting Jew, end quote, the German name for what we English call the wandering Jew, the German imagination has been most struck with the duration of the man's life, and his unhappy sanctity from death, the English by the unrestingness of the man's life, his incapacity of repose, and footnote. Only one thing was clear, what they were not, neither was, or wished to be, anything that people cared for. They were both empty shadows, but shadows as they were, we find from Cicero that they had a power of polluting and profaning better things than themselves. We presume that no rational man will henceforth look for, quote, dinner, that great idea according to Dr. Johnson, that sacred idea according to Cicero, in a bag of moonshine on the side, or a bag of pollution on the other. Prandium, so far from being what our foolish dictionaries pretend, dinner itself, never in its pommiest days, was more or other than a miserable attempt at being luncheon. It was a canatus, what psychologists call a nissus, a struggling in a very ambitious spark, or scintilla, to kindle into fire. This, nissus, went on for some centuries, but finally issued in smoke. If Prandium had worked out his ambition, had, quote, the great stream of tendency, and, quote, accomplished all his wishes, Prandium never could have been more than a very indifferent luncheon. But now, too, we have to offer another fact, ruinous to our dictionaries, on another ground. Various circumstances have disguised the truth, but a truth it is, that, quote, Prandium, in its very origin, in Cunabula, never was a meal known to the Roman. Culina. In that court, it was never recognized except as an alien. It had no original domicile in the city of Rome. It was a vat casfren cis, a word and an idea purely marshal, and pointing to marshal necessities amongst the new ideas proclaimed to the recruit. This was one, quote, look for no, coenu, no regular dinner with us. Resign those unwarlike notions. It is true that even war has its respites. In these, it would be possible to have our Roman, coena, with all its equa-page, of ministrations. Such luxury untunes the mind for doing and suffering. Let us voluntarily renounce it, that when a necessity of renouncing it arrives, we may not feel it among the hardships of war. From the day when you enter the gates of the camp, reconcile yourself, Tyro, to a new fashion of meal, to what in camp dialect we call Prandium, end quote. This, quote, Prandium, this essentially military meal, was taken standing by way of symbolizing the necessity of being always ready for the enemy. Hence, the posture in which it was taken at Rome, the very counterpull to the luxurious posture of dinner. A writer of the third century, a period from which the Romans naturally looked back upon everything connected with their own early habits, and with the same kind of interest as we extend to our Alfred, note, separated from us as Romulus from them by just a thousand years. In speaking of Prandium, says, quote, quote dictum est, Prandium abio, quote militis ad bellum paret, end quote. Isidorus again says, quote, propria pud, viteris, Prandium, vocatum, fuese, onanem, militum, sibum, onti, pugnum, end quote, i.e., quote, that properly speaking amongst our ancestors every military meal taken before battle was termed Prandium, end quote. According to Isidore, the proposition is reciprocating, vis, that as every Prandium was a military meal, so every military meal was called Prandium, but in fact the reason of that is apparent. Whether in the camp or the city, the early Romans had probably but one meal a day, that is true of many a man amongst ourselves by choice. It is true also to our knowledge of some horse regiments in our service, and may be of all. This meal was called coena, or dinner in the city, Prandium in camps. In the city it would always be tending to one fixed hour. In the camp innumerable accidents of war would make it very uncertain. On this account it would be an established rule to celebrate the daily meal at noon, if nothing hindered. Not that a later hour would not have been preferred had the choice been free, but it was better to have a certainty at a bad hour than by waiting for a better hour to make it an uncertainty. For it was a camp proverb, Prancis piratus. Armed with his daily meal the soldier is ready for service. It was not, however, that all meals, as Isidore imagined, were indiscriminately called Prandium, but that one soul meal of the day by accidents of war might and did revolve through all hours of the day. End of Section 15, Dinner Real and Reputed Part 2, Thomas DeQuincy. Recording by Robert Scott, June the 28th, 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Robert Scott, Miscellaneous Essays by Thomas DeQuincy. Dinner Real and Reputed Part 3. The first introduction of this military meal into Rome itself would be through the Honorable Pendantry of Old Centurions and Company. Delighting, note, like the trunnions and company of our navy, to keep up in peaceful life some image or memorial of their past experience, so wild, so full of peril, excitement and romance as Roman warfare must have been in those ages. Many non-military people, for health's sake, many as an excuse for eating early, many by way of interposing some refreshment between the stages of forensic business, would adopt this hurried and informal meal. Many would wish to see their sons adopting such a meal as a training for foreign service in particular, and for temperance in general. It would also be maintained by a solemn and very interesting commemoration of this camp repast in Rome. This commemoration, because it has been grossly misunderstood by Salmaceous, note, whose error arose from not making the true point of a particular antithesis, and still more, because it is a distinct confirmation of all we have said as to the military nature of Prandium. We shall detach from the series of our illustrations by placing it in a separate paragraph. On a set day the officers of the army were invited by Caesar to a banquet. It was a circumstance expressly noticed in the invitation by the proper officers of the palace that this banquet was not a, quote, coena, but a, quote, Prandium. What followed in consequence? Why that all the guests sat down in full military accoutrement, whereas, observes the historian, had it been a coena, the officers would have unbelted their swords, for he adds, even in Caesar's presence, the officers lay aside their words. The word, Prandium, in short, converted the palace into the imperial tent, and Caesar was no longer a civil emperor and, Princeps, Senatus, but became a commander-in-chief amongst the council of his staff, all belted and plumed and in full military figure. On this principle, we come to understand why it is that whenever the Latin poets speak of an army as taking food, the word used is always, Prandins, and, Princess, and when the word used is Prandins, then always it is an army that is concerned. Thus Juvenile, in a well-known satire, quote, Cretimus Altos, Disicces, Amnes, Epotaque, Ftumina, Medo, Prandente, end, quote. Not coenate. Observe, you might as well talk of an army taking tea and toast, nor is that word ever applied to armies. It is true that the converse is not so rigorously observed, nor audit from the explanations already given, though no soldier dined, note, coenabot, yet the citizens sometimes adopted the camp usage and took a Prandium. But generally, the poets use the word merely to mark the time of day, in that most humorous appeal of Perseus, quote, Cure Quiss, Nonprandiat, Hock Est, end, quote. Is this a sufficient reason for losing one's Prandium? He was obliged to say, Prandium, because no exhibitions ever could cause a man to lose his coenia, since none were displayed at a time of day when anybody in Rome would have attended. Just as in alluding to a parliamentary speech notoriously delivered at midnight, an English satirist must have said, is this a speech to furnish an argument for leaving one's bed? Not as what stood foremost in his regard, but as the only thing that could be lost at that time of night. On this principle also, viz, by going back to the military origin of Prandium, we gain the interpretation of all the peculiarities attached to it, viz. 1. It's early hour. 2. It's being taken in a standing posture. 3. In the open air. 4. The humble quality of its materials. Bread and biscuit. Note the main articles of military fare. In all these circumstances of the meal, we read, most legibly written, the exotic and military character of the meal. Thus we have brought down our Roman friend to Noonday, or even one hour later than noon, and to this moment the poor man has had nothing to eat, for supposing him to be not in Francis, and supposing him gentace. Beside, yet in the evident, note, we hope, that neither one nor the other means more than what it is often called, viz, note, Greek, buchismos, or, in plain English, a mouthful. How long do we intend to keep him waiting? Reader, he will dine at three, or, note, supposing dinner put off to the latest hour, at four. Dinner was never known to be later than the tenth hour in Rome, which in summer would be past five, but for a far greater proportion of days would be near four in Rome, except for one or two of the emperors whom the mere business attached to their unhappy station kept sometimes dinnerless till six. As so entirely was Roman, the creature of ceremony, that a national morning would probably have been celebrated, and the, quote, sad augurs, end quote, would have been called in to expiate the prodigy, had the general dinner lingered beyond four. But meantime, what has our friend been about since perhaps six or seven in the morning? After paying his little homage to his patroness, in what way has he fought with the great enemy time since then? Why, Reader, this illustrates one of the most interesting features in the Roman character. The Roman was the idolist of men, quote, man and boy, end quote. He was, quote, an idler in the land, end quote. He called himself, and his pals, quote, rarem dominos gentemcu togatum, end quote. The gentry that wore the toga. Yes, a pretty affair that, quote, toga was. Just figure to yourself, Reader, the picture of a hardworking man with horny hands like our hedgers, ditchers, weavers, potters, and company. Setting to work in the high road in that vast sweeping toga, filling with a strong gale like the mainsail of a frigate, conceived the roars with which this magnificent figure would be received into the bosom of a poor house detachment sent out to attack the stones on some new line of road, or a fatigued party of dustmen set upon secret service. Had there been nothing left as a memorial of the Romans but that one relic, their immeasurable toga, footnote to follow, we should have known that they were born and bred to idleness. Footnote, immeasurable toga, quote, it is very true that in the time of Augustus the toga had disappeared amongst the lowest plebes, and greatly Augustus was shocked at that spectacle. It is a very curious fact in itself, especially as expounding the main cause of the civil wars. Mere poverty and the absence of bribery from Rome will stall popular competition for offices drooped. Can alone explain this remarkable revolution of dress and footnote. In fact, except in war, the Roman never did anything at all but son himself. Ute se apricaret was the final cause of peace in his opinion, in literal truth that he might make an apricot of himself. The public rations at all times supported the poorest inhabitants of Rome if he were a citizen. Hence it was that Hadrian was so astonished with the spectacle of Alexandria. Quote, civitas apulenta fecunda inqua nemo vivat atiosus. Here first he saw the spectacle of a vast city, second only to Rome where every man had something to do. Padagrosi quad agnat habent, habent sisi quad fascinat ne ciragrici. Note, those with gout in the fingers. Quote, apud eos otiosi vivant. No poor rates levied upon the rest of the world for the benefit of their own paupers were there distributed. Gratis. The prodigious spectacle, note, so it seemed to Hadrian, was exhibited in Alexandria of all men earning their bread in the sweat of their brow. In Rome only, note, and at one time in some of the Grecian states, it was the very meaning of citizen that he could vote and be idle. In these circumstances where the whole sum of life's duties amounted to voting, all the business a man could have was to attend the public assemblies, electioneering, or factios. These and any judicial trial, note, public or private, that might happen to interest him for the person concerned or for the question, amused him through the morning. That is, from eight till one, he might also extract some diversion from the columnnae, or pillars of certain porticoes to which they pasted advertisements. These aphishes might have been numerous for all the girls in Rome who lost a trinket or a pet bird or a lap dog took this mode of angling in the great ocean of the public for the missing article. But all this time we take for granted that there were no shows in a course of exhibition, either the dreadful ones of the amphitheater or the bloodless ones of the circus. If there were, then that became the business of all Romans, and it was a business which would have occupied him from daylight until the light began to fall. Here we see another effect from the scarcity of artificial light amongst the ancients. These magnificent shows went on by daylight, but how incomparably greater would have been the splendor by lamplight. What a gigantic conception! Eighty thousand human faces all revealed under one blaze of lamplight. Lord Bacon saw the mighty advantage of candlelight for the poms and glories of this world. But the poverty of the earth was the ultimate cause that the pagan shows proceeded by day. Not that the masters of the world who reigned Arabian odors and perfumed waters of the most costly description from a thousand fountains simply to cool the summer heats would have regarded the expense of light, cedar, and other odorous woods burning upon vast altars. Together, with every variety of fragrant torch, would have created light enough to shed a new day over the distant Adriatic. However, as there are no public spectacles, we will suppose, and the courts or political meetings. Note, if not closed altogether by superstition, would at any rate be closed in the ordinary course by twelve or one o'clock. Nothing remains for him to do, before returning home, except perhaps to attend the palestra, or some public recitation of a poem written by a friend, but in any case to attend the public baths. For these the time varied, and many people have thought it tyrannical in some of the Caesar's that they imposed restraints on the time open for the baths. Some, for instance, would not suffer them to open at all before too, and in any case, if you were later than four or five in summer, you would have to pay a fine which most effectually cleaned out the baths of all riffraff. Since it was a sum that John Queries could not have produced to save his life. But it should be considered that the Emperor was the steward of the public resources for maintaining the baths in fuel, oil, attendance, repairs. We are prepared to show, on a fitting occasion, that every fourth person, footnote to follow, amongst the citizens, bathed daily, and non-citizens, of course, paid an extra sum. Footnote that boys in the Pratexta did not bathe in the public baths is certain, and most unquestionably, that is the meaning of the expression in juvenile so much disputed. Quote, nisi quai nandam avair lavantur. By ace, he means the ahanam, common name for the public bath, which was made of copper. In our navy, quote, the coppers is a name for the boilers. Quote, nobody believes in such tales except children. End quote is the meaning. This one exclusion cut off three-eighths of Roman males. End footnote. Now, the population of Rome was far larger than has ever been hinted at except by Lipsius. But, certain it is, that during the long piece of the first Caesars, and after the Annanaria Pro-Riccio, note that great pledge of popularity to a Roman prince had been increased by the corn tribute from the Nile. The Roman population took an immense lurch ahead. The subsequent increase of baths, whilst no old ones were neglected, proves that decisively. And as citizenship expanded by means of the easy terms on which it could be had, so did the bathers multiply. The population of Rome in the century after Augustus was far greater than during that era, and this, still acting as a vortex to the rest of the world, may have been one great motive with Constantine for, quote, transferring the capital eastwards. In reality, for breaking up one monster capital into two of more manageable dimensions, two o'clock was often the earliest hour at which the public baths were opened. But in Marshall's time a man could go without blushing, note, salva fronte, at eleven, though even then two o'clock was the meridian hour for the great uproar of splashing and swimming and, quote, larking in the endless baths of endless Rome. And now, at last, bathing finished, and the exercise of the palestra, and half past two or three, our friend finds his way home. Not again to leave it for that day. He is now a new man, refreshed, oiled with perfumes, his dust washed off by hot water, and ready for enjoyment. These were the things that determined the time for dinner. Had there been no other proof that, Coena was the Roman dinner, this is an ample one. Now first the Roman was fit for dinner in a condition of luxurious ease. Business ever that day's load of anxiety laid aside. His cuticle as he delighted to talk. Cleansed and polished, nothing more to do or think of until the next morning he might now go and dine, and get drunk with a safe conscience. Besides, if he does not get dinner now, when will he get it? For, most demonstrably, he has taken nothing yet which comes near in value to that basin of soup which many of ourselves take at the Roman hour of bathing. No, we have kept our man fasting as yet. It is to be hoped that something is coming, at last. It does come. Dinner, the great meal of, quote, Coena, the meal sacred to hospitality and genial pleasure comes now to fill up the rest of the day, until light falls altogether. Many people are of the opinion that the Romans only understood what the capabilities of dinner were. It is certain that they were the first great people that discovered the true secret and meaning of dinner, the great office which it fulfills, and which we in England are now so generally acting on. Barbarous nations, and none were, in that respect, more barbarous than our own ancestors, made this capital blunder. The brutes, if you ask them what was for dinner, what it was meant for, stared at you, and replied, as a horse would reply, if you put the question about his provender, that it was to give him strength for finishing his work. Therefore, if you point your telescope back to antiquity about twelve or one o'clock in the daytime, you will describe our most worthy ancestors all eating for their very lives, eating as dogs eat, vis, in bodily fear that some other dog will come and take away their dinner. What swelling of the veins in the temples! Note, see Boswell's natural history of Dr. Johnson at dinner. What intense and rapid deglitation! What odious clatter of knives and plates! What silence of human voice! What gravity! What fury in the libidinous eyes with which they contemplate the dishes! Positively, it was an indecent spectacle to see Dr. Johnson at dinner. But, above all, what maniacal hasten hurry, as if the fiend were waiting with red-hot pinchers, to lay hold of the hindermost. O reader, do you recognize in this abominable picture your respected ancestors and ours? Excuse us for saying, quote, what monsters! We have a right to call our own ancestors monsters, and if so, we must have the same right over yours. Four, Dr. Sothe has shown plainly, in the, quote, doctor, that every one having four grandparents in the second stage of ascent. Note, each of whom having four therefore. Sixteen in the third, and so on, long before you get to the conquest. Every man and woman, then living in England, will be wanted to make up the sum of my separate ancestors. Consequently, you must take your ancestors out of the very same fund. Or, note, if you are too proud for that, you must go without ancestors. So that your ancestors being clearly mine, I have a right in law to call the whole, kit of them, monsters. Quad erat dimonstrandum. Really, and upon our honor, it makes one, for the moment, ashamed of one's descent. One would wish to disinherit oneself backward. And, note, as Sheridan says in the Rivals, to, quote, cut the connection, end, quote. Wordsworth has an admirable picture in Peter Bell of, quote, a snug party in a parlor, end, quote, removed into Limbus Patrum for their offenses in the flesh. Quote, cramming, as they on earth were crammed, all sipping wine, all sipping tea, but as you, by their faces see, all silent, and all DD. End, quote. How well does that one word describe these venerable ancestral diners? Quote, all silent. Contrast this infernal silence of voice and fury of eye with the, quote, rhesus amabilis, end, quote, the festivity, the social kindness, the music, the wine, the, quote, dulcius insania, end, quote, of a Roman, quote, coena. We mention four tests for determining what meal is and what is not dinner. We may now add a fifth, viz, the spirit of festal joy and elegant enjoyment, of anxiety laid aside, and of honorable social pleasure put on like a marriage garment. And what caused the difference between our ancestors and the Romans? Simply this, the error of interposing dinner in the middle of business, thus courting all the breezes of angry feeling that may happen to blow from the business yet to come. Instead of finishing, absolutely closing the account with the world's troubles before you sit down, that unhappy interpolation ruined all. Dinner was an ugly little parentheses between two still uglier clauses of a tea-totally ugly sentence. Whereas with us, their enlightened posterity, to whom they have the honor to be ancestors, dinner is a great reaction. There lies our conception of the matter. It grew out of the very excess of the evil. When business was moderate, dinner was allowed to divide and bisect it. When it swelled into the vast strife and agony, as thee may call it, that boils along the tortured streets of modern London or other capitals, men began to see the necessity of an adequate counter-force to push against this overwhelming torrent, and thus maintain the equilibrium. Were it not for the soft relief of a six o'clock dinner, the gentle manner succeeding to the boisterous hubbub of the day, the soft glowing lights, the wine, the intellectual conversation, life in London is now come to such a pass that in two years all nerves would sink before it. But for this periodic reaction the modern business which draws so cruelly on the brain and so little on the hands would overthrow that organ in all but those of coarse organization. Dinner it is, meaning by dinner the whole complexity of attendant circumstances which saves the modern brain-working men from going mad. End of Section 16, Dinner, Real and Reputed, Part 3 by Thomas De Quincey. Recorded by Robert Scott, June 30, 2007. Recording by Robert Scott, Miscellaneous Essays by Thomas De Quincey. Section 17, Dinner, Real and Reputed, Part 4. This revolution as to dinner was the greatest in virtue and value ever accomplished. In fact, those are always the most operative revolutions which are brought about through social or domestic changes. A nation must be barbarous. Neither could it have much intellectual business which dined in the morning. They could not be at ease in the morning. So much must be granted every day has its separate quantum, its dose, note as the doctrineists of rent phrase it, of anxiety, that could not be digested so soon as noon. No man will say it. He, therefore, who dined at noon, was willing to sit down squalid as he was with his dress unchanged, his cares not washed off. And what follows from that? Why, that to him, to such a canine or cynical specimen of the genus Homo. Dinner existed only as a physical event, a mere animal relief, a mere carnal enjoyment. For what, we demand, did this fleshy creature differ from the carrion crow, or the kite, or the vulture, or the cormorant? A French judge in an action upon a wager laid it down in law. That man only had a bush. All other animals had a gulet. Only with regard to the horse, in consideration of his beauty, nobility, use, and in honor of the respect with which man regarded him by the courtesy of Christendom, he might be allowed to have a bush. And his reproach of brutality, if not taken away, might thus be hidden. But surely, of the rabid animal who is caught dining at noonday, the Homoferus who affronts the meridian sun like theestes and atreus, by his inhumane meals, we are, by parody of reason, entitled to say that he has a, quote, maw. Note, so has Milton's death. But, nothing resembling a stomach, and to this vile man a philosopher would say, quote, go away, sir, and come back to me two or three centuries hence, when you have learned to be a reasonable creature, and to make that, physico, intellectual, thing out of dinner, which it is meant to be, and is capable of becoming, end quote. In Henry VII's time the court dined at eleven in the forenoon, but even that hour was considered so shockingly late in the French court that Louis XII actually had his gray hairs brought down with sorrow to the grave. By changing his regular hour of half past nine, for eleven, in gallantry to his young English bride, footnote to follow, he fell a victim to late hours in the forenoon. Footnote, quote, his young English bride, the case of an old man, or one reputed old, marrying a very girlish wife, is always to be much for the gravity of history, and rather than loose the joke, the historian prudently disguises the age, which, after all, was little above fifty, and the very persons who insist on the late dinner as the proximate cause of death elsewhere insinuate something else, not so decoriously expressed. It is odd that this amiable prince, so memorable as having been a martyr to late dining at eleven a.m., was the same person who is so equally memorable for the noble answer about a king of France not remembering the wrongs of a Duke of Orleans. End footnote. In Cromwell's time they dined at one p.m. One century and a half had carried them on by two hours. Doubtless, old cooks and scullions wondered what the world would come to next. Our French neighbors were in the same predicament, but they far surpassed us in veneration for the meal. They actually dated from dinner. Dinner constituted the great era of the day. La Presse d'Enerre is almost the sole date which you can find in Cardinal de Ritz's Memoirs of the Fronde. Dinner was there Hegira. Dinner was there line in traversing the ocean of day. They crossed the equator when they dined. Our English Revolution came next. It made some little difference we have heard people say in church and state, but its great effects were perceived in dinner. People now dined at two. So dined Addison for his last thirty years. So dined Pope, who was co-of-all with the Revolution through his entire life. Precisely as the rebellion of 1745 arose did people, note but observe very great people, advance to four p.m. Philosophers who watched the quote Semina rarum and the first symptoms of change had perceived this alteration singing in the upper air like a coming storm some little time before. About the year 1740 Pope complains to a friend of Lady Suffolk's dining so late as four. Young people may bear those things he observes, but as to himself now turned of fifty if such doings went on if Lady Suffolk would adopt such strange hours he must really absent himself from Marble Hill. Lady Suffolk had a right to please herself. He himself loved her, but if she would persist all which remained for a decayed poet was respectfully to, quote, cut his stick and retire, end quote, whether Pope ever put up with four o'clock dinners again we have vainly sought to fathom. Some things advance continuously, like a flood or a fire, which always makes an end of A, eat and digest it before they go on to B. Other things advance, per sultum. They do not silently cancer their way onwards, but lie as still as a snake after they have made some notable conquest. Then when unobserved they make themselves up, quote, for mischief, end quote, and take a flying bound onwards. Thus advance dinner, and by these fits got into the territory of evening, and ever as it made a motion onwards it found the nation more civilized. Note, else the change would not have been affected, and raise them to a still higher civilization. The next relay on that line of road, the next repeating frigate, is Calper in his Poamon Conversation. He speaks of four o'clock as still the elegant hour for dinner, the hour for the La Teores, and the Lepedi Hominés. Now this was written about 1780 or a little earlier, perhaps therefore just one generation after Pope's Lady Suffolk, but then Calper was living amongst the rural gentry, not in high life. Yet again Calper was nearly connected by blood with the eminent wig house of Calper, and acknowledged as a kinsman. About twenty-five years after this we may take Oxford as a good exponent of the national advance. As a magnificent body of, quote, foundations endowed by kings and resorted to by the flower of the national youth, Oxford is always elegant and even splendid in her habits. Yet on the other hand, as a grave seat of learning, and feeling the weight of her position in the Commonwealth, she is slow to move, she is inert as she should be, having the functions of resistance, assigned to her against the popular instinct of movement. Now in Oxford, about 1804-05, there was a general move in the dinner hour. Those colleges, who dined at three, of which there are still several now, now dined at four. Those who had dined at four now translated their hour to five. These continued good general hours, but still amongst the more intellectual orders till about Waterloo. After that era, six, which had been somewhat of a gala hour, was promoted to the fixed station of dinnertime in Ordinary. And there perhaps it will rest through centuries. For a more festal dinner, seven, eight, nine, ten have all been in requisition since then. But we have not yet heard of any man's dining later than ten p.m. Except in that single classical instance, note so well remembered from our Father Joe, of an Irishman who must have dined much later than ten, because his servant protested, when others were enforcing the dignity of their masters by the lateness of their dinner hours, that his master dined, quote, tomorrow. Were the Romans not as barbarous as our own ancestors at one time? Most certainly they were. In their primitive ages, they took their coena at noon. Footnote to follow. That was before they had laid aside their barbarism, before they shaved. It was during their barbarism and in consequence of their barbarism that they timed their coena thus unseasonably. Footnote, quote, took their coena at noon. End quote. And by the way, in order to show how little coena had to do with any evening hour, note, though in any age but that of our Fathers, four in the afternoon would never have been thought an evening hour in the sense implied by supper. The Roman, Gormans, and Bonne's Vivants continued through the very last ages of Rome to take their coena when more than usually sumptuous at noon. This indeed all people did occasionally, just as we sometimes give a dinner even now so early as 4 p.m. under the name of a desjuner alla forcette. Those who took their coena so early as this were said, de dai coenere, to begin dining from high day, just as the line in Horus, quote, ud jugulent hominese, surgun, denahte, letronez, end quote, does not mean that the robbers rise when the others are going to bed, vis at nightfall, but at midnight. Four says one of the three best scholars of this earth, de dai denahte, mean from that hour which was most fully, most intensely, day or night, vis the center, the meridian. This one fact is surely a clencher as to the question whether coena meant dinner or supper, end footnote. And this is made evident by the fact that, so long as they aired in the hour, they aired in the attending circumstances. At this point they had no music at dinner, no festival graces, and no reposing upon sofas. They sat, bolt upright in chairs, and were, as grave as our ancestors, as rabid and doubtless as furiously enhaste. With us the revolution has been equally complex. We do not, indeed, adopt a luxurious attitude of semi-recombency. Our climate makes that less requisite, and, moreover, the Romans had no knives and forks which could scarcely be used in that posture. They ate with their fingers from dishes already cut up, whence the peculiar force of Seneca's, quote, postquad nonsunt, lavande, manas, end quote. But exactly in proportion, as our dinner has advanced towards evening, have we, and has that advance in circumstances of elegance, of taste, of intellectual value, end quote. That, by itself, would be much. Infinite would be the gain for any people that it had ceased to be brutal, animal, fleshy. Ceased to regard the chief meal of the day as administration only to an animal necessity. They had raised it to a far higher standard, associated it with social and humanizing feelings, with manners, with graces both moral and intellectual. Moral and self-restraint. Intellectual, in the fact, notorious to all men that the chief arenas for the easy display of intellectual power are at our dinner tables. But dinner has, now, even a greater function than this. As the fervor of our day's business increases, dinner is continually more needed in its office of a great reaction. We repent that, at this moment, but for the daily relief of dinner, the brain of all men who mix in the strife of capitals would be unhinged and thrown off its center. If we should suppose the case of a nation taking three equidistant meals all of the same material and the same quantity, all milk, for instance, it would be impossible for Thomas Aquinas himself to say which was or was not dinner. The case would be that of Roman Ancelay, which dropped from the skies to prevent its ever being stolen, the priests made eleven facsimiles of it, that the thief seeing the hopelessness of distinguishing the true one might let all alone. And the result was that in the next generation nobody could point to the true one. But our dinner, the Roman coena, is distinguished from the rest by far more than the hour. It is distinguished by great functions and by still greater capacities. It is most beneficial. It may become more so. In saying this we point to the lighter graces of music and conversation, more varied by which the Roman coena was chiefly distinguished from our dinner. We are far from agreeing with Mr. Crowley that the Roman meal was more, quote, intellectual than ours. On the contrary, ours is more intellectual by much. We have far greater knowledge, far greater means for making it such. In fact, the fault of our meals is that it is too intellectual. Of too severe a character, too political, too much tending, in many hands, too disquisition, reciprocation of question and answer, variety of topics, shifting of topics, and points not sufficiently cultivated. In all else we ascent to the following passage from Mr. Crowley's eloquent solithial, quote, if an ancient Roman could start from his slumber into the midst of European life, he must look with scorn on its absence of grace, eloquence, and fancy. But it is in its festivity, and most of all in its banquets, that he would feel the incurable barbarism of the Gothic blood, contrasted with the fine display that made the table of the Roman noble a picture, and threw over the indulgence of appetite the colors of the imagination. With what eyes must he contemplate the tasteless and commonplace dress, the coarse attendance, the meager ornament, the want of mirth, music, and intellectual interest, the whole heavy machinery that converts the feast into the mere drudgery of devouring, end quote. Thus far the reader knows already that we dissent violently, and by looking back he will see a picture of our ancestors at dinner, in which they rehearse the very part in relation to ourselves that Mr. Crowley supposes all moderns to rehearse in relation to the Romans. But in the rest of the beautiful description, the positive, though not the comparative part, we must all concur. Quote, the guests before me were fifty or sixty splendidly dressed men. Note, they were in fact Titus and his staff, then occupied with the siege of Jerusalem, end quote. Quote, attended by a crowd of domestics, attired with scarcely less splendor, for no man thought of coming to the banquet in the robes of ordinary life. The embroidered couches, themselves striking objects, allowed the ease of position at once delightful in the relaxing climates of the south, and capable of combining with every grace of the human figure. At a slight distance the table loaded with plate-glittering under a profusion of lamps, and surrounded by couches thus covered by rich draperies, was like a central source of light radiating in broad shafts of every brilliant hue. The wealth of the patricians and their intercourse with the Greeks made them masters of the first performances of the arts. Copies of the most famous statues and groups of sculptures in the precious metals, trophies of victories, models of temples, were mingled with vases of flowers and lighted perfumes. Finally, covering and closing all, was a vast scarlet canopy which combined the groups beneath to the eye, and threw the whole into the form that a painter would love, end quote. Mr. Crowley then goes on to insist on the intellectual embellishments of the Roman dinner, their variety, their grace, their adaptation to a festive purpose. The truth is, our English imagination, more profound than the Roman, is also more gloomy, less gay, less riente, that accounts for our want of the gorgeous tritinium with its scarlet draperies and for many other differences both to the eye and to the understanding. But both we and the Romans agree in the main point, we both discovered the true purpose which dinner might serve. One, to throw the grace of intellectual enjoyment over an animal necessity. Two, to relieve and antagonize the toil of brain, incident to high forms of social life. Our object has been to point the eye to this fact, to show uses imperfectly suspected in a recurring accident of life, to show a steady tendency to that consummation, by holding up, as in a mirror, note, together with occasional glimpses of hidden corners in history, the corresponding revolution silently going on in a great people of antiquity. End of Section 14, Dinner, Real and Reputed, Part 4, by Thomas DeQuincey. Recording by Robert Scott, July the 1st, 2007. End of Miscellaneous Essays, by Thomas DeQuincey.