in their application to English homes and their evening
accompaniment, Tea.

"Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in."


"Tea" was the designation of the customary evening meal in
most American families for about two centuries, and as late as
1850, since which time it has merged in the more substantial
"late dinner," in cities and towns especially, although the last
meal of the closing day is still "Tea" in spirit and in name
in many families where commercial necessities have not compelled
change. The same is true of England from which we derive our
customs, and with which we also changed it. According to
Washington Irving's veracious History of New York, tea-parties
were indulged in by the Dutch inhabitants of New Amsterdam during
the reign of Governor Wouter Van Twiller (which commenced in
1633). Irving says:

"But though our worthy ancestors were singularly averse to
giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bonds of intimacy by
occasional banqueting, called tea parties.

"These fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher
classes or noblesse, that is to say, such as kept their own cows,