Dinner-parties, though not the regular every day amusements of life in Vienna, are not uncommon. There is much similarity in the style of dinners throughout Germany, and it has some points of peculiar excellence. The table is generally round or oval; so that each guest has means of intercourse with the whole party, even when it is large. It is covered for the greater part with a tasteful display of sweets or fruits; two places only being left near the middle for the substantial dishes. Each person is provided with a black bottle of light wine, and every cover, even at a _table d’hote_, is furnished with a napkin and silver forks. The first dishes which occupy the vacant spaces are always soups; they are quickly removed to the side-tables and distributed by the servants. In the mean time, the next dish is placed upon the table, taken off, carved, and carried round to the guests in precisely the same manner; and so on till every thing has been served. The plates are carefully changed, but the knives and forks very generally remain throughout the greater part of the dinner, or, at best, are only wiped and returned. The dishes are so numerous and the variety so great, that, as every body eats a little of every thing, they seldom take twice of the same. The succession of luxuries is not exactly as with us. An Englishman is somewhat surprised to see a joint of meat followed by a fish, or a savoury dish usurp the place of one that was sweet. To conclude the ceremony, each servant takes one of the sweetmeat ornaments off the table, and carries it, as he has done with the other dishes, to all the guests. During all this time the conversation is general and lively, and beyond a doubt much more interesting than that which is heard on similar occasions and in similar society in England, where its current is perpetually interrupted by the attention which every one is bound to pay to the wants and wishes of persons at the most distant part of the table. While the sweetmeats are served, a few glasses of some superior kinds of wine, which have likewise been distributed at intervals during the dinner, are carried round; and then the company, both ladies and gentlemen, rise at the same time by a kind of mutual consent, which, as the rooms are seldom carpeted, occasions no inconsiderable noise. To this succeeds a general bowing and compliment from every one to each of the company individually, each hoping that the other has eaten a good dinner. This peculiar phrase is precisely the counterpart of another always employed on the parting of friends about mid-day, each expressing a sincere hope that the other will eat a hearty dinner. This is the most usual form of civility in Vienna.