DINNER AT INVRRARY.
��receives ami sorts the new publications which are ever coming in, before he transfers them to the shelves of the library.
The noble drawing-room remains unchanged -the gilded ceiling, the old French tapestry covering the walls, the gilt tapestry chairs, the oaken floor, up and clown which the duke and Boswell walked conversing, while her grace made Dr. Johnson come and sit by her. All is the same, except that time has dealt kindly by the tapestry and the gilding, and refined them in their fading.
Faujas Saint-Fond, who spent three days in the castle a few years later, is full of praise of everything which he saw. The duke and his family, he says, spoke French with a purity not unworthy
of the highest society in Paris. The cookery, with the exception of a few dishes, was French, and was ex- cellent. There was an abundance of hot- house fruits. There were silver forks in- stead of "ces petits tridens cl'acier bien aigus, en forme de dard, fixes sur un manche, clout on se sert ordinairement en Angleterre, memedans les maisons ou Ton
donne de fort bons diners." 1 Still more did he rejoice at seeing napkins on the table, a rare sight in F^ngland. The hours of meals were, breakfast at ten o'clock, dinner at half-past four, and supper at ten. At dinner, after the ladies had withdrawn, "la cereinonie des (oasts " lasted at least three-quarters of an hour P
At Inverary Johnson met not only the descendants of a long line
���TAPKSTRY I1KDKOOM.
��person who receives the rents anil revenues of some corporations is still called chamhcilain ; as the chamberlain of London." Beatlie's .SVW- tictsms, p. 24.
1 Voyage fn Anglcttrrc, &^f., i. 290.
a He gives the following curious account of an accommodation which we should scarcely have expected to find in the dining-room of In-
��verary : "Si, pendant les libations, le champagne mousseux fait ressentir son influence appcritive, le cas cst prevu, et sans quitter la compagnie, on trouve dans de jolies encoignures, places dans les angles de la salle, tout ce qui est necessaire pour satisfaire a ce petit besoin." Voyage en Angleterre, &c., i. 294.
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