or eight P.M. In 1839, a large part of London is still doing the very same thing, taking one meal at two, and another at seven or eight. But the names are entirely changed: the two o'clock meal used to be called dinner, and is now called luncheon; the eight o'clock meal used to be called supper, and is now called dinner.

Now the question is easily solved: because, upon reviewing the idea of dinner, we soon perceive that time has little or no connexion with it: since both in England and France, dinner has travelled, like the hand of a clock, through every hour between ten A. M. and ten P. M. We have a list, well attested, of every successive hour between these limits having been the known established hour for the royal dinner-table within the last 350 years. Time, therefore, vanishes from the equation: it is a quantity as regularly exterminated as in any algebraic problem. The true elements of the idea, are evidently these:-1. That dinuer is that meal, no matter when taken, which is the principal meal; i. e. the meal on which the day's support is thrown. 2. That it is the meal of hospitality. 3. That it is the meal (with reference to both Nos. 1. and 2.) in which animal food predominates. 4. That it is that meal which, upon necessity arising for the abolition of all but one, would naturally offer itself as that one. Apply these four tests to prandium :-How could that meal answer to the first test, as the day's support, which few people touched? How could that meal answer to the second test, as the meal of hospitality, at which no body sate down? How could that meal answer to the third test, as the meal of animal food, which consisted exclusively and notoriously of bread? Or to the fourth test, of the meal entitled to survive the abolition of the rest, which was itself abolished at all times in practice?

Tried, therefore, by every test, prandium vanishes. But we have something further to communicate about this same prandium.

I. It came to pass, by a very natural association of feeling, that prandium and jentaculum, in the latter centuries of Rome, were generally confounded. This result was inevitable. Both professed the same basis. Both came in the morning. Both were fictions. Hence they were confounded.

That fact speaks for itself:-Breakfast and luncheon never could have been confounded; but who would be at the pains of distinguishing two shadows? In a gambling-house of that class where you are at liberty to sit down to a splendid bauquetanxiety probably prevents your sitting down at all; but, if you do, the same cause prevents your noticing what you eat. So of the two pseudo meals of Rome, they came in the very midst of the Romau business; viz from nine A. M. to two P. M. Nobody could give his mind to them, had they been of better quality. There lay one cause of their vagueness, viz.—in their position. Another cause was-the common basis of both. Bread was so notoriously the predominating "feature" in each of these prelusive banquets, that all foreigners at Rome, who communicated with Romans through the Greek language, knew both the one and the other by the name of agraires, or the bread repast. Originally this name had been restricted to the earlier meal. But a distinction without a difference could not sustain itself: and both alike disguised their emptiness under this pompous quadrisyllable. In the identity of substance, therefore, lay a second ground of confusion. And then, thirdly, even as to the time, which had ever been the sole real distinction, there arose from accident a tendency to converge. For it happened that while some had jentaculum but no prandium, others had prandium but no jentaculum; a third party had both: a fourth party, by much the largest, had neither. Out of which varieties (who would think that a nonentity could cut up into so many somethings?) arose a fifth party of compromisers, who, because they could not afford a regular cana, and yet were hospitably disposed, fused the two ideas into one; and so, because the usual time for the idea of a breakfast was nine to ten, and for the idea of a luncheon twelve to one, compromised the rival pretensions by what diplomatists call a mezzo termine; bisecting the time at eleven, and melting the two ideas into

one.

But by thus merging the separate times of each, they abolished the sole real difference that had ever divided them. Losing that, they lost all.

Perhaps, as two negatives make one

affirmative, it may be thought that two layers of moonshine might coalesce into one pancake; and two Barmecide banquets might compose one poached egg. Of that the company were the best judges. But probably, as a rump and dozen, in our land of wagers, is construed with a very liberal latitude as to the materials, so Martial'sinvitation, "to take bread with him at eleven," might be understood by the us as significant of something better than αξτοσιτος. Otherwise, in good truth, "moonshine and turn-out at eleven A. M., would be even worse than "tea and turn-out" at eight P. M., which the "fervida juventus" of young England so loudly detests. But however that might be, in this convergement of the several frontiers, and the confusion that ensued, one cannot wonder that, whilst the two bladders collapsed into one idea, they actually expanded into four names, two Latin and two Greek, gustus and gustatio, γευσις, and γευσμα which all alike express the merely tentative or exploratory act of a prægustator or professional "taster" in a king's household: what, if applied to a fluid, we should denominate sipping.

At last, by so many steps all in one direction, things had come to such a pass the two prelusive meals of the Roman morning, each for itself separately vague from the beginning, had so communicated and interfused their several and joint vaguenesses, that at last no man knew or cared to know what any other man included in his idea of either; how much or how little. And you might as well have hunted in the woods of Ethiopia for Prester John, or fixed the parish of the everlasting Jew, as have attempted to say what "jentaculum" might be, or what "prandium." Only one thing

clear what they were not. Neither was or wished to be any thing that people cared for. They were both empty shadows; but shadows as they were, we find from Cicero that they had a power of polluting and profaning better things than themselves.

We presume that no rational man will henceforth look for "dinner". that great idea according to Dr Johnson-that sacred idea according to Cicero-in a bag of moonshine on one side, or a bag of pollution on the other. Prandium, so far from being what our foolish dictionaries pretend -dinner itself-never in its palmiest days was more or other than a miserable attempt at being luncheon. It was a conatus, what physiologists call a nisus, a struggle in a very ambitious spark, or scintilla, to kindle into a fire. This nisus went on for some centuries; but finally issued in smoke. If prandium had worked out his ambition, had "the great stream of tendency" accomplished all his wishes, prandium never could have been more than a very indifferent luncheon. But now,

II. We have to offer another fact, ruinous to our dictionaries on another ground. Various circumstances have disguised the truth, but a truth it is, that "prandium" in its very origin and incunabula, never was a meal known to the Roman culina. In that court it was never recognised except as an alien. It had no original domicile in the city of Rome. It was a vox castrensis, a word and an idea purely martial, and pointing to martial necessities. Amongst the new ideas proclaimed to the recruit, this was one"look for no 'cana,' no regular dinner, with us. Resign these unwarlike notions. It is true that even war has its respites; in these it would be possible to have our Roman cœna with all its equipage of ministrations. Such luxury untunes the mind for doing and suffering. Let us voluntarily renounce it; that, when a necessity of renouncing it arrives, we may not feel it, among the hardships of war. From the day when you enter the gates of the camp, reconcile yourself, tyro, to a new fashion of meal, to what in camp dialect we call prandium." This "prandium," this essentially military meal, was taken standing, by way of symbolizing the necessity of being always ready for the enemy Hence the posture in which it was taken at Rome, the very counter-pole to the

luxurious posture of dinner. A writer of the third century, a period from which the Romans naturally looked back upon every thing connected with their own early habits, and with the same kind of interest as we extend to our Alfred, (separated from us as Romulus from them by just a thousand years,) in speaking of prandium, says, "Quod dictum est parandium, ab eo quod milites ad bellum paret.' Isidorus again says, "Proprie apud veteres prandium vocatum fuisse omnem militum cibum ante pugnam;" i. e. "that, properly speaking, amongst our ancestors every military meal taken before battle was termed prandium." According to Isidore, the proposition is reciprocating, viz. that, as every prandium was a military meal, so every military meal was called prandium. But, in fact, the reason of that is apparent. Whether in the camp or the city, the early Romans had probably but one meal in a day. That is true of many a man amongst ourselves by choice; it is true also, to our knowledge, of some horse regiments in our service, and may be of all. This meal was called cœna, or dinner in the city-prandium in camps. In the city it would always be tending to one fixed hour. In the camp innumerable accidents of war would make it very uncertain. On this account it would be an established rule to celebrate the daily meal at noon, if nothing hindered; not that a later hour would not have been preferred had the choice been free; but it was better to have a certainty at a bad hour, than by waiting for a better hour to make it an uncertainty. For it was a camp proverb-Pransus, paratus; armed with his daily meal, the soldier is ready for service. It was not, however, that all meals, as Isidore imagined, were indiscriminately called prandium; but that the one sole meal of the day, by accidents of war, might, and did, revolve through all hours of the day.

The first introduction of this military meal into Rome itself, would be through the honourable pedantry of old centurions &c., delighting (like the Trunnions, &c., of our navy) to keep up in peaceful life some image or memorial of their past experience, so wild, so full of peril, excitement, and romance, as Roman warfare must have been in those ages. Many nonmilitary people for health's sake, many - an excuse for eating carly, many

by way of interposing some refreshment between the stages of forensic business, would adopt this hurried and informal meal. Many would wish to see their sons adopting such a meal as a training for foreign service in particular, and for temperance in general. It would also be maintained by a solemn and very interesting commemoration of this camp repast in Rome.

This commemoration, because it has been grossly misunderstood by Salmasius, (whose error arose from not marking the true point of a particular antithesis,) and still more, because it is a distinct confirmation of all we have said as to the military nature of prandium, we shall detach from the series of our illustrations, by placing it in a separate paragraph.

On a set day the officers of the army were invited by Cæsar to a banquet; it was a circumstance expressly noticed in the invitation, by the proper officers of the palace, that the banquet was not a "coena," but a "prandium." What followed, in consequence? Why, that all the guests sate down in full military accoutrement; whereas, observes the historian, had it been a cana, the officers would have unbelted their swords; for, he adds, even in Cæsar's presence the officers lay aside their swords. The word prandium, in short, converted the palace into the imperial tent: and Cæsar was no longer a civil emperor and princeps senātûs, but became a commander in-chief amongst a council of his staff, all belted and plumed, and in full military fig.

On this principle we come to understand why it is that, whenever the Latin poets speak of an army as taking food, the word used is always prandens and pransus; and, when the word used is prandens, then always it is an army that is concerned. Thus Juvenal in a well-known satire"Credimus altos Desiccasse amnes, epotaque flumina, Medo Prandente."

Not cœnante, observe: you might as well talk of an army taking tea and toast: Nor is that word ever applied to armies. It is true that the converse is not so rigorously observed: nor ought it, from the explanations already given. Though no soldier dined, (canabat,) yet the citizen sometimes adopted the camp usage and took a prandium. But generally the poets

use the word merely to mark the time of day. In that most humorous appeal of Persius-" Cur quis non prandeat, hoc est ?" "Is this a sufficient reason for losing one's prandium ?" He was obliged to say prandium, because no exhibitions ever could cause a man to lose his cana, since none were displayed at a time of day when any body in Rome would have attended. Just as, in alluding to a Parliamentary speech notoriously delivered at midnight, an English satirist must have said, is this a speech to furnish an argument for leaving one's bed?-not as what stood foremost in his regard, but as the only thing that could be lost at the time of night. On this principle, also, viz. by going back to the military origin of prandium, we gain the interpretation of all the peculiarities attached to it: viz.-1, its early hour-2, its being taken in a standing posture-3, in the open air-4, the humble quality of its materials-bread and biscuit, (the main articles of military fare.) In all these circumstances of the meal, we read, most legibly written, the exotic and military character of the meal.

Thus we have brought down our Roman friend to noonday, or even one hour later than noon, and to this moment the poor man has had nothing to eat. For, supposing him to be not impransus, and supposing him jentûsse beside; yet it is evident, (we hope,) that neither one nor the other means more than what it was often called, viz. Bennioμos, or, in plain English, a mouthful. How long do we intend to keep him waiting? Reader, he will dine at three, or (supposing dinner put off to the latest) at four. Dinner was never known to be later than the tenth hour in Rome, which in summer would be past five; but for a far greater proportion of days would be near four in Rome, except for one or two of the Emperors, whom the mere business attached to their unhappy station kept sometimes dinnerless till six.

And so entirely was a Roman the creature of ceremony, that a na

tional mourning would probably have been celebrated, and the " sad augurs" would have been called in to expiate the prodigy, had the general dinner lingered beyond four.

But, meantime, what has our friend been about since perhaps six or seven in the morning? After paying his little homage to his patronus, in what way has he fought with the great enemy Time since then? Why, reader, this illustrates one of the most interesting features in the Roman character. The Roman was the idlest of men. "Man and boy," he was " an idler in the land." He called himself and his pals "rerum dominos, gentemque togatam;" the gentry that wore the toga. Yes, and a pretty affair that "toga" was. Just figure to yourself, reader, the picture of a hardworking man, with horny hands like our hedgers, ditchers, weavers, porters, &c., setting to work on the high-road in that vast sweeping toga, filling with a strong gale like the mainsail of a frigate. Conceive the roars with which this magnificent figure would be received into the bosom of a poor-house detachment sent out to attack the stones on some new line of road, or a fatigue party of dustmen sent upon secret service. Had there been nothing left as a memorial of the Romans but that one relic-their immeasurable toga,*-we should have known that they were born and bred to idleness. In fact, except in war the Roman never did any thing at all but sun himself. Ut se apricaret was the final cause of peace in his opinion; in literal truth, that he might make an apricot of himself. The public rations at all times supported the poorest inhabitant of Rome if he were a citizen. Hence it was that Hadrian was so astonished with the spectacle of Alexandria, " civitas opulenta, fæcunda, in quâ nemo vivat otiosus." Here first he saw the spectacle of a vast city, second only to Rome, where every man had something to do; "podagrosi quod agant habent; habent cæci quod faciant; ne chiragrici" (those with gout in the fingers) apud eos otiosi vivunt."

No poor-rates levied upon the rest of the world for the benefit of their own paupers were there distributed gratis. The prodigious spectacle (so it seemed to Hadrian) was exhibited in Alexandria, of all men earning their bread in the sweat of their brow. In Rome only, (and at one time in some of the Grecian states,) it was the very meaning of citizen that he could vote and be idle.

In these circumstances, where the whole sum of life's duties amounted to voting, all the business a man could have was to attend the public assemblies, electioneering, or factious. These, and any judicial trial (public or private) that might happen to interest him for the persons concerned, or for the questions, amused him through the morning; that is, from eight till one. He might also extract some diversion from the columnæ, or pillars of certain porticoes to which they pasted advertisements. These affiches must have been numerous; for all the girls in Rome who lost a trinket, or a pet bird, or a lapdog, took this mode of angling in the great ocean of the public for the missing articles.

But all this time we take for granted that there were no shows in a course of exhibition, either the dreadful ones of the amphitheatre, or the bloodless ones of the circus. If there were, then that became the business of all Romans; and it was a business which would have occupied him from daylight until the light began to fail. Here we see another effect from the scarcity of artificial light amongst the ancients. These magnificent shows went on by daylight. But how incomparably greater would have been the splendour by lamp-light! What a gigantic conception! Eighty thousand human faces all revealed under one blaze of lamp-light! Lord Bacon saw the mighty advantage of candle light for the pomps and glories of this world. But the poverty of the earth was the ultimate cause that the Pagan shows proceeded by day. Not that the mas

ters of the world, who rained Arabian odours and perfumed waters of the most costly description from a thousand fountains, simply to cool the summer heats, would have regarded the expense of light; cedar and other odorous woods burning upon vast altars, together with every variety of fragrant torch, would have created light enough to shed a new day over the distant Adriatic.

However, as there are no public spectacles, we will suppose, and the courts or political meetings, (if not closed altogether by superstition,) would at any rate be closed in the ordinary course by twelve or one o'clock, nothing remains for him to do, before returning home, except perhaps to attend the palastra, or some public recitation of a poem written by a friend, but in any case to attend the public baths. For these the time varied; and many people have thought it tyrannical in some of the Cæsars that they imposed restraints on the time open for the baths; some, for instance, would not suffer them to open at all before two, and in any case, if you were later than four or five in summer, you would have to pay a fine which most effectually cleaned out the baths of all raff, since it was a sum that John Quires could not have produced to save his life. But it should be considered that the Emperor was the steward of the public resources for maintaining the baths in fuel, oil, attendance, repairs. We are prepared to show on a fitting occasion, that every fourth person* amongst the citizens bathed daily, and non-citizens, of course, paid an extra sum. Now the population of Rome was far larger than has ever been hinted at except by Lipsius. But certain it is, that during the long peace of the first Cæsars, and after the annonaria provisio, (that great pledge of popularity to a Roman prince,) had been increased by the corn tribute from the Nile, the Roman population took an immense lurch ahead. The subsequent increase of baths, whilst no