Queen Elizabeth's supper, the day in a manner ended; and except upon festive occasions, when balls, masks, or other Court-revels were going on, her Majesty and her attendants were accustomed to go early to bed, and rose, for that must not be forgotten, proportionably early.* Queen Victoria, on the contrary, has, customarily, a long "after-dinner" before retiring to rest. This interval is agreeably passed in the manner and society most congenial to her Majesty's taste; and thus are the refections of the day, consisting of the very best diet the world can produce, improved by the very best cookery, allowed time for healthy digestion, which is furthermore assisted by a cup of coffee or tea, luxuries which good Queen Bess never enjoyed; and when the hour of rest comes, the sleep which gradually steals over the senses, the natural result of lassitude, is just such as is best calculated to restore, both to the mind and body, the energies which will be in requisition again the ensuing day. Now, there is no country where the gradations of rank are more completely dovetailed than in England; none, therefore, of which, it may be said, with equal truth, that -as is the Court, so are the Courtiers; as are the Courtiers, so are the Nobility; as are the Nobility, so are the Aristocracy generally; and so on to the Gentry, * Modern fashionables are, not unfrequently, going to their beds, when their ancestors would have been thinking of leaving them. Dr. Clarke used to say, that his patients in high life seldom appeared to think it hard upon him to be summoned to their bedsides at midnight or later. The apology was only made when he was called to them at eight or nine in the morning. who follow the example of those above them, further sometimes, it is to be feared, than good sense and discretion would suggest. But, be this as it may, it is undeniable, that the habits of social life in England are, at present, far better regulated than they were a century or more ago. There is much less frequenting of taverns; much less rioting and drunkenness; much less gluttony and intemperance; and the result is, as might be expected, a considerable elevation of the average of human life, with the exception of the very lowest classes of society in our large and populous cities, where they still grovel in want and wretchedness, physical and moral, to an extent, of which nothing short of a personal knowledge of facts can enable any one to form a due estimate. I have lately seen it stated, in a circular letter, sent by the Poor Law Commissioners to the guardians of the parishes and unions in the metropolis, that no fewer than 13,972 cases of claims to relief, on the ground of destitution, were created during the year 1838 by attacks of fever alone, attributable, chiefly, to the defective internal and external economy of the dwellings of the labouring classes, and to the want of proper cleanliness in them. But more, far more, to be deprecated than all the other sources of misery and disease, are the innumerable ginshops which have reared their devilish fronts in London of late years, and which are, in a great measure, supported by the famished objects who crawl out from their damp and noisome cellars, to these worse than Juggernaut temples, where they cast their pence into the treasury of the idol, who gives them in return deadlier poisons than ever pervaded the moral or animal frame of the heathen worshipper. And are such abominations permitted in enlightened England? Oh, tell it not in Gath, nor speak of it in the streets of Askelon. Meantime, great consolation it is to know that Government, and the public at large, are getting daily more awake to these matters; are daily paying more and more attention to the bodily, as well as spiritual wants, of their debased fellow-creatures; are daily penetrating more and more the veil which separates one half of the world from the other. High and low, rich and poor, there must and ever will be; and it is not, therefore, from a mad insensibility to this wise ordination of Providence, that such active measures are in progress for ameliorating the condition of the poor; but from a truly Christian spirit, and the ardent wish thereby engendered, to mitigate the burden of poverty, and to restore to the poorest man living the consciousness of his equality with the highest as a moral and responsible being. And now, having descended from royal palaces to the lowest abodes of wretchedness, as if to illustrate that the sublime and ridiculous are not the only extremes from which it requires but a step to pass from one to the other, I resume the thread of my discourse, and proceed to show, with my friend Abernethy still in view, that there are many other causes which have a favourable, and far more extensive influence on the health of the community in the age in which we live, than the mere arrangement of the hours of refection. The problem to the solution of which I am pledged, albeit circuitously, and, as it were, by implication, is the assumed comparative exemption from apoplexy. Modern cookery deals much less, than was formerly the case, in wines and spices; whilst our markets, thanks to the rapid advances which have been made, of late years, in agriculture and gardening, are infinitely better supplied with wholesome articles of food, both animal and vegetable, to the exclusion almost of dried and salted provisions. The art of preserving health generally is better understood; and its relation to diet, more especially, has been pointed out, and even dwelt upon in elaborate treatises, by men of plain sense, of professional experience, and of scientific attainments; all of whom agree, that the " mens sana in corpore sano" is the privilege of a well-regulated life alone. The good and temperate only find I very much question the correctness, without great qualification, of the assertion that is sometimes made, that men of the present day are less robust than their ancestors; for although it is no new thing for victory to be on the side of British valour, it may fairly be asked, whether stouter hearts ever manned our ships, or braver warriors ever filled the ranks of our armies, than those who triumphed, under our Generals and Admirals in the war of the French revolution? And if in the great mass of our present population there exist a larger proportion now, than some centuries ago, of frail and puny individuals, may not this be attributed to the well-known fact, that in the present day, many more weakly children are reared, owing to better medical treatment, a better system of education, and, as I have been showing with reference chiefly to the middle and upper classes of society, far more attention to diet and regimen generally.* The usual interval between dinner and bed-time is longer, I have said, than it was formerly between supper and bed-time; and I am likewise, I believe, correct in saying, that, in by far the majority of instances, this interval is more rationally employed, which is the surest evidence of its having been preceded by no excessive indulgence in the luxuries of the table; for when the mind is borne down by a load of food, it is alike incapable of useful or elegant occupation. The golden rule is, not to eat more at any time than is consistent with the exercise of mind or body on rising from table. At all events, by making it our practice to keep as near as we can to this rule, it will be found that nature will not be unprepared for such little occasional excesses as are scarcely to be avoided, without very inconvenient singularity, in our intercourse with the world. It is likewise charitable not to overlook the wellknown fact that, although hunger and thirst are common * I make no allusion here to the factory system. God grant that so foul a blot may not be suffered much longer to disgrace the escutcheon of a nation claiming to be pre-eminently Christian. |