crossed the Channel piecemeal, bringing in their hands, not bows and
swords, but new dishes and new wines. These invaders of our soil were
doubtless welcomed as benefactors by the proud nobles of the Courts
of Edward II. and Richard II., as well as by Royalty itself; and the
descriptions which have been preserved of the banquets held on special
occasions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and even of
the ordinary style of living of some, make our City feasts of to-day
shrink into insignificance. But we must always remember that the
extravagant luxury and hospitality of the old time were germane and
proper to it, component parts of the social framework.

It is to be remarked that some of the most disturbed and disastrous
epochs in our annals are those to which we have to go for records of
the greatest exploits in gastronomy and lavish expenditure of public
money on comparatively unprofitable objects. During the period from
the accession of Rufus to the death of Henry III., and again under the
rule of Richard II., the taste for magnificent parade and sumptuous
entertainments almost reached its climax. The notion of improving the
condition of the poor had not yet dawned on the mind of the governing
class; to make the artizan and the operative self-supporting and
self-respectful was a movement not merely unformulated, but a
conception beyond the parturient faculty of a member of the Jacquerie.
The king, prince, bishop, noble, of unawakened England met their
constituents at dinner in a fashion once or twice in a lifetime, and
when the guests below the salt had seen the ways of greatness, they
departed to fulfil their several callings. These were political
demonstrations with a clear and (for the age) not irrational object;
but for the modern public dinner, over which I should be happy to
preach the funeral sermon, there is not often this or any other plea.