A LITERARY DINNER.


A few days after this conversation with Mr. Buckthorne, he called upon
me, and took me with him to a regular literary dinner. It was given by
a great bookseller, or rather a company of booksellers, whose firm
surpassed in length even that of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego.

I was surprised to find between twenty and thirty guests assembled,
most of whom I had never seen before. Buckthorne explained this to me
by informing me that this was a "business dinner," or kind of field
day, which the house gave about twice a year to its authors. It is
true, they did occasionally give snug dinners to three or four literary
men at a time, but then these were generally select authors; favorites
of the public; such as had arrived at their sixth and seventh editions.
"There are," said he, "certain geographical boundaries in the land of
literature, and you may judge tolerably well of an author's popularity,
by the wine his bookseller gives him. An author crosses the port line
about the third edition and gets into claret, but when he has reached
the sixth and seventh, he may revel in champagne and burgundy."

"And pray," said I, "how far may these gentlemen have reached that I
see around me; are any of these claret drinkers?"

"Not exactly, not exactly. You find at these great dinners the common
steady run of authors, one, two, edition men--or if any others are