NOTE -BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 271 



before Cliantrey, who immediately commenced spoon- 

 exercise, as Jonathan delicately describes such evolu- 

 tions; 'and this I did/ said Chantrey, 'to punish him 

 for his greed/ 



What was the unhappy functionary to do ? His own 

 tureen was exhausted, and, in a half-frantic tone, he 

 called to one of the waiters to bring him some turtle. 

 But at City feasts the guests are very industrious, espe- 

 cially when turtle is the order of the day ; and the waiter, 

 after trying about, brought back to our greedy citizen 

 the identical plate of fatless flesh which had so as- 

 tounded the chaplain, who had contrived to exchange 

 his unwelcome portion for one more worthy of a sleek 

 son of the Church: 'and then,' Chantrey would add, 

 ' my attentive neighbour's visage was awful to look upon \' 

 There was no help for it; so the disconcerted functionary 

 betook himself to the rejected plate, with the additional 

 discomfitiu'e of seemg Chantrey send away his, still rich 

 with calipee, fat, and fins. 



But this is mild, compared with scenes which have 

 arisen on such occasions in less refined times. Some- 

 thing, indeed, may be allowed for the weakness of human 

 nature, and the excitement of the moment, when 



The tender morsels on the palate melt, 

 And all the force of cookery is felt. 



But time was when the Graces seem to have been altogether 

 banished from the great civic feasts, and the onslaught of 

 the o-astrophilists waxed fast and furious. Hogarth has 

 touched this in the eighth plate of his inimitable In- 

 dustry and Idleness, when the industrious apprentice 

 has grown rich, and is Sheriff of London ; ' representing 

 to us,' as worthy Dr. Trusler observes, ' at one view, the 

 various ways of what we call laying it in.' Quin de- 

 clared that it was not safe to sit down to a feast in one 

 of the City halls without a basket-hilted knife and fork 



