We are no enemy to dinner-parties; on the contrary, we think we have not enough of them, and we never shall have enough, till some change takes place in their constitution.  We are a small gentleman ourselves, who dine at the modest hour of four, and what is the use to us of a six or seven o’clock invitation?  We accept it, of course, being socially disposed, and being, moreover, philosopher enough to see that such meetings are good for men in society:  but so far as the meal itself goes, it is to us either useless or disagreeable.  If we have dined already, we do not want another dinner; and if we have not dined, our appetite is lost from sheer want.  It is vain to say, Let us all dine habitually at six—­seven—­eight o’clock.  Few of us will—­few of us can—­none of us ought.  Nature demands a solid meal at a much earlier hour; and true refinement suggests that the object of the evening reunion should not be the satisfaction of the day’s hunger.  Only half of this fact is seen by the classes who give the law to fashion, and that half consists of the grosser and coarser necessity.  They have already, more especially at their country seats, taken to the tiffin of the East, and at a reasonable hour make a regular dinner of hot meats, and all the usual accessories, under the name of lunch.  So complete is this meal, that the ladies, led away no doubt by association, meet some hours afterwards in mysterious conclave, to drink what our ancestors called ’a dish of tea;’ and having thus diluted the juices of their stomachs for the reception of another supply of heavy food, they descend to dinner!

The evening dinner is, therefore, a mere show-dinner, or something worse.  But it is still more objectionable on the score of taste than on the score of health.  We find no fault with the elegances of the table, in plate, crystal, china, and so forth; but an English dinner is not an elegant meal.  The guests are supposed, by a polite fiction, to have the hunger of the whole day to satisfy, and provision is made accordingly.  Varieties of soup, fish, flesh, fowl, game, rich-made dishes, load the board spread for a group of well-dressed men and women, known to have already dined, and who would affect to shudder at so heavy a meal, if it was termed supper.  There is a grossness in this arrangement which is strangely at variance with the real advancement of the age in refinement; but it has likewise a paralysing effect both upon the freedom and delicacy of social intercourse.  These show-dinners are too costly to be numerous.  Even a comparatively wealthy man is compelled to look closely to the number of his entertainments.  He scrutinises the claims of his acquaintance; he keeps a debtor and creditor account of dinners with them; and if now and then he invites a guest for the sake of his social qualities, he sets him down in the bill of cost.  This does away with all the finer social feelings which it should be the province of such meetings to foster and gratify, and adds a tone of moral vulgarity to the material vulgarity of the repast.