smiles the portrait of the once celebrated and beautiful, though now
somewhat forgotten, Duchess of D----, or the equally resplendent Lady
Emily M----.

His table is of the same finish with his wardrobe. If he sat down to
dinner, even when alone, in boots, that visitation which Quin ascribed to
the prevalent neglect of "pudding on a Sunday"--an earthquake might be
expected to follow. His spoons and silver forks are marked with his crest;
and he omits no opportunity to inform his friends, that the right of the
family to the arms was proved at Herald's College by his great uncle John.
He has receipts for mulligatawny and oyster soups, not to be equalled; and
another for currie-powder, which a friend of his obtained, as the greatest
of favours, from Sir Stamford Raffles, and which, though bound in honour
not to make known, he means to leave to his son by will, under certain
injunctions. His cookery of a "French rabbit," provided the claret be
first-rate, is superb; and on _very_ particular occasions, he condescends
to know how to concoct a bowl of punch, especially champagne punch, for
the which he has a formula in rhyme, the poetry of which never, as is its
happy case, losing sight of correctness and common-sense, comes, as well
as its subject matter, home to "his business and his bosom." His "caviar"
is, through the kindness of a commercial friend, imported from the hand of
the very Russian _cuisinier_, who prepares it (unctuous relish!) for the
table of the Emperor himself. His cheese is Stilton or Parmesan.

Like "Mrs. Diana Scapes," he is also "curious in his liquors," and, in
despite of Beau Brummell, patronizes "malt," as far as to take one glass
of excellent "college ale,"--which he gets through his friend Dr. Dusty of
All Souls--between pastry and Parmesan. After cheese, he can relish one,
and only one, glass of port--all the better if of the "Comet vintage," or
of some vintage ten years anterior to that. His drink, however, is claret,