MEALS, 457 
moreover, the sight of others eating is appetizing of itself. Major 
Loder, in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, is credited with a remark 
which goes to prove the truth of this assertion: “Come away 
into the supper room, Mrs. R.,” he says to the guileless Becky ; 
“seeing these nobs grubbing away has made me peckish, too.” 
In. or about the year 1600 it was customary to “dyne at XI 
of the clocke.” For instance, “My Lady Cholmeley, having 
ordered her household during one morning, and instructed her 
many daughters in their various duties, went round her domaine 
from hop garthe to hen yard, from linen closet to larder, prying, 
tasting, and admonishing, until her family was call’d together 
to dyne at noon.” During the time of Louis XIII of France 
the dinner was announced by blowing a horn, and thence came 
the order “ Cornez le diner,” leading to naming the viands 
‘Corned beef,” etc. ‘We had pudding before meat in my 
day,” says Mr. Holbrook, the old-fashioned bachelor-yeoman 
in Cranford (Mrs. Gaskell, 1863). “*‘ When I was a young man 
we used to keep strictly to my father’s rule, ‘ No broth, no ball : 
no ball, no beef,’ and we always began dinner with broth; then 
came the suet puddings boiled in the broth with the beef; and 
then the meat itself. If we did not sup our broth we had no 
ball, which we liked a deal better; and the beef came last of all. 
Now folks begin with sweet things, and turn their dinners topsy 
turvy.” In the familiar nursery rhyme ot Froggy would 
a-wooing go, the same practice is clearly alluded to with regard 
to the little dinner, of which a menu is given in the song’s refrain, 
— Roly, poly” (pudding), followed by “ gammon (of pork), 
and spinach”; quite a satisfying repast, though probably the 
first course of jam rol] didn’t digest comfortably, because 
immediately afterwards, ‘‘ Heigho! said Roly.” 
The great Duke of Wellington, when journeying through 
France with Alava in 1814, invariably on being asked at what 
time of the coming day they should next start, replied, “ At 
daybreak”; and to the question what they should have for 
dinner, answered, “‘ Cold meat.” “Je les ai eu en horreur, & la 
fin,” Alava declared ; “ces deux mots la-daybreak, et cold meat.” 
Thackeray, as one of the last generation, dined early :— 
* A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, 
I prithee get ready at three! oe 
Have it smoking, and tender, and juicy, 
And what better meat can there be ? 
