DIALOGUE THE NINTH.

MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C.

TESTY, SENIOR AND JUNIOR.-SENSITIVE.

(TESTY'S HOUSE.)

Testy.

HEYDAY! friend Sensitive-what in the name

of nastiness, has now come

"Between the wind and your nobility?"

why you have not a feature in its proper place !— have you just been passing by a pigsty?—or what has come across you?

Sen. A pigsty!-O, would that were all !-No! I have just not passed by, but actually entered into, and at length, thank my stars espcaped alive out of—a mansty-a chophouse, Mr. Testy, a chophouse!-Every poor gentleman, I believe, has done the same, once in his life out of economy; and so, made himself sick for the rest of his days:-O the "beggarly unwholesome knaves!"-and, if possible, still more unwholesome provender;-take the description, reeking from the reality, while I am able to attempt it :first, though, give me, for pity, a glass of cherry brandy, to settle my imagination, as well as my stom

ach. (Testy rings the bell violently, and at the next instant begins swearing at the delay of the servant.Sensitive, after swallowing the cordial, delivers) GROAN 1. (S.)

On my entrance, Sir, I beheld three or four silent, wan, scattered wretches, who, from their several corners, were whispering their mean orders, or settling their shabby accounts, with the waiter;-as, bring me half a gill of wine"-"another quarter of a pint of your table beer," &c. &c. Then, for my accommodations coarse, grimed, slopped, scanty table cloth; from which the last man's draff and offal was briskly, but not effectually, whisked away, to make me comfortable!—knife and fork slubbered through the general knife cloth, leaving the split handles gritty and greasy; and on the knife, the maker's name, and the joining (or rather the disjoining) part, clogged up with brick dust. I next had to beguile my waiting time of three quarters of an hour, with the well buttered, beered, and thumbed weekly (if not monthly) Chronicle, which I found sprawling over the bottomless cruets, dry mustardpot, party coloured salt, smeared spoons, &c.-At last, up came my black, raw, tough, chop, (as I had no fancy for a 19th slice, hacked from the once hot joint,) and one or two watery, broken potatoes, with the skins on, or rather falling off, together with the oily water prepared for them in a cracked butterboat. (All this time, observe, my motions were gloomily surveyed by one or two abjects, (seated in the same box with me,) who had been already fed and drenched, but who, for no reason, sat still a long time, muzzing, and leaning on their folded arms, till, at length, they sneaked out.)—Then came the dry rank remains of some nondescript cheese; and at last—as I could not swallow new sloewater, because they called it port-my pint of stale, frothless porter, in a yellow, scorched mug, without a handle all concluded by the grim waiter, with his verbal bill, thus audibly delivered, in a tone of glib slang, for the edifica

tion of the rest of the kennel :-" Dinners 8d.-penny bread, penny 'taters, five fard'ns beer, fard'n cheese-in all 11 1-2d” -the mechanical memoryof each man's account being evidently the only faculty resident in his black, bull's head. To consummate my sorrows- -just as I was going out of the house after my poison, to drown myself, my eye was caught by some of the most elegant women of my acquaintance, smiling by in a barouche !-My last mentioned purpose I resolved to defer, till I had imparted to you the circumstances that inspired it.

Tes. Come, come, defer it a little longer still-at least till you have taken another glass of the cordial. I am nearly as far gone myself, at the bare descrip tion, and so I shall beg leave to pledge you.-Come, cheer up-and force yourself to forget it, by searching your common place book for some calamity a little less loathsome.-Here-read me No. 1, which your late adventure, you know, has turned into No. 2, by unexpectedly taking the lead.

Sen. (looking at his paper) Ah!if torture can overcome qualmishness, this may well succeed, truly! I will leave you to judge.

2. (S.)

A dinner of roast meat indefatigably prophesied in your ear the whole morning long, by the piteous moans of a jack; at the same time that the fluctuations of a stormy day are no less faithfully reported to you by a neighbouring sign, swinging and squeaking, by fits, in the wind-illness closely confining you to the house, and thereby securing your attention, during the whole performance of this diabolical duetto.

Tes. As to the "swinging sign," Virgil seems to have drawn the same use from it that you have:

"ventos

et certis possimus dicere signis."

3. (T.)

After having been very hungry all the morning, finding, as you sit down to an excellent dinner, that your appetite has se'cretly decamped,-Or,

4. (T.)

On entering the dining room, half famished, with the fullest expectations of seeing the dinner on the table-not even the cloth laid.

5. S.)

Sitting down, with a keen appetite, to a beef steak, (and nothing else,) which proves to be completely charked by overdressing.

Tes. Confound 'em!-none of them ever attend to Macbeth's receipt for dressing a beef steak, though by much the best that ever was given.

Sen. How!

Tes. Why,

"when 'tis done, 'twere well

If 'twere done quickly."

6. (T.)

In a college hall-sitting at dinner on a bench nailed to the floor, and this at such a distance from the table, (nailed down, also,) that you feed in the position of a rower, just beginning his stroke.

7. (S.)

Slicing at a large round of beef, (near which your Evil Genius has seated you) with a very short bladed knife, so as inevitably to grease its handle, your fingers, and the cuff of your coat; the company, as if in a plot to drive you out of your senses, scarcely tasting of any thing else.

M

Ned Tes. O, a long knife for a large joint, by all means; both for nicety's sake, and because "Fortiter et melius magnas plerumque sECAT res.”8. (S.)

After forwardly offering your services in cutting up a goose, or a hare-being obliged to make a practical confession, before twenty watchful witnesses, that you have no genius for carving.

Diving at a bone with a marrow spoon so large that it sticks at the middle of the bowl;-then, on trying, in despair, with a fork, bringing up two or three globules of yellow fat.

This constantly happens to us, Mrs. Testy, as you very well know-however you manage it. Ned Tes. (with a start)

"Avaunt!"thy bones are marrowless!"

10. (S.)

Macb.

Attempting to cut and help out cauliflower, or asparagus, with a spoon-the fate of the cargo, (which you had neglected to insure,) is well known :-ditto as to jelly, which instantly bids adieu to the spoon, and quivers like quicksilver about the cloth.

11. (S.)

The spinning plate :-there is but one, and you always have it.

12. (T.)

Missing the way to your mouth, and drowning your breast in a bath of beer.

13. (T.)

The moment in which you discover that you have taken in a mouthful of fat, by mistake, for turnip.

14. (S.)

Finding an human hair in your mouth, which, as you slowly draw it forth, seems to lengthen ad infinitum,