170 THE TABLE D'HOTE. 



and brandy, come to see at what diminished rate they could consume a 

 being destined to the high prerogative of smoking, drinking, billiards, 

 and abandoned laziness. 



The table d'hote, at which the looser quality of English took their 

 daily meal, was honoured with my uncle's presence ; in fact, he was en 

 pension; and as he had severely suffered on various occasions from 

 yielding to the impulse of a first impression, however repugnant to his 

 character, the style and conduct of certain members of the mess, he 

 resolved to try if they did not improve on more mature acquaintance. 



The experiment of three good months, had left my uncle as remote as 

 ever from the latent merits of his mess-mates ; and, on the last occasion of 

 his dining in their company, the party was composed of the ingredients 

 now to be enumerated. Two gentlemanly, tranquil Frenchmen; an 

 East Indian, vulgarly denominated " a Nabob," who had gone to France 

 in quest of culinary luxury, and on the usual experiment of persons who 

 have lived for any time in an establishment in Asia, of finding out the 

 cheapest methods of a gormandizing system as usual, suspicious of 

 every soul he met, and always thinking himself the elected object of 

 imposition greedy, selfish, unrefined, tenacious and imperious: his 

 wife, the remnant of a once buxom form, whom, in despite of her inferior 

 grade, the fiery penchant of Mr. Blunt had elevated, after strenuous 

 endeavours at a less devout establishment, to the unenviable condition of 

 his lawful consort. 



As Mrs. Blunt, like many of her class exported to the East, had not 

 partaken very largely of the benefits of education, and in the languor 

 of the Asiatic clime had totally abstained from every effort at improve- 

 ment, she had crowned a superficial and neglected understanding, with 

 all the mawkish graces of a supplicated belle, whose animal attractions 

 had inspired the sing-song fondness of the military idlers of the East. 

 She had gained considerable notoriety by the multitude of her Platonic 

 intimacies ; and doubtless would have passed through her career of pscy- 

 chological affection with untainted fame, if she had not unwittingly 

 admitted to the mysteries of that persuasion an Hibernian officer, who 

 so successfully contended for an emendation of the attic doctrine, by a 

 slight infusion of the ethics of St. Patrick, that Mr. Blunt, on one 

 occasion, found the vigorous philosopher, in the noon-day umbrage of a 

 goolistan, in the overt triumph of his advocacy. But, he was either too 

 much imbued with the duty of forgiveness, or of a character too sensual, 

 to repudiate, at so great a distance from the grand emporium, the 

 sources of his uxorious satisfaction. 



The next two persons we must introduce, were " men of Oxford," 

 whose college education had supplied them merely with certain narratives 

 of glorious excess, in which the decency of life had been most wantonly 

 affronted, by disgusting rows, and by potations more disgusting still ; 

 each of them had swallowed at a sitting more than four good magnums 

 of Mr. Latimer's potential black strap; had subsequently offered a 

 becoming insult to the proctors, and, indeed, to all that was grave and 

 reverend in that venerable institution of former discipline and learning. 

 Their nominal residence at Oxford had passed in rustication, as was 

 obvious, from their conversation and address ; they owned a tolerable 

 quantum of slang, and smut, and mannerism (of a coachman, I should 

 add) ; in short, they were a couple of revolting, stolid boobies ; and 

 nature, had she placed their habitation in a wilderness, would have con- 



