A GRAND DINNER IN THE LAST CENTURY 201 



expense was no consideration, was a portentous 

 function, and one wonders at the valetudinarian 

 Queensberry attending sucli a feast at a period when 

 good manners obliged the guests then to both eat 

 and drink more than most modern men and women 

 could stand for one season, while some of these 

 bibulous gourmands passed through their fifties or 

 sixties before they found, like ' Old Q,' an ' indigestion 

 p^nihle.' Any one of these would have considered 

 the nine o'clock dinner of to-day a pastrycook's 

 repast, unworthy of an honest desire on the part of 

 a host to give his best, and time to eat, drink, and 

 enjoy it in. Why, some of our forefathers could not 

 have got drunk in the three hours left before mid- 

 night. ' tempora ! mores ! ' 



The Duke survived safely ; but, on the 10th, I find 

 him 'gazetted' in the fashionable news of those 

 times as having been much indisposed, though 

 now in a fair way of recovery. This incident permits 

 me to refer to his medical attendant at this period — 

 one he is said to have specially retained, though 

 others were called in as necessity or occasion required. 

 This person is thought to have been a Frenchman, 

 named Elvizee, or Elisee,^ to whom the Duke gave 

 £600 per annum so long as he should live, but who 



^ Formerly physician to Louis xv. 



