This dinner was given by a literary amateur, to several authors and authoresses, who furnish our _running account_ of novels, essays, disquisitions reviews, articles, fugitive poems, squibs, and _bon mots_. And in the evening we had a numerous accession of both sexes, who were brought together as professedly _bookish_ people, and therefore fit audience for the writers who, I suppose, were expected to be speakers also. I know, that I for _one_, went fully possessed with the idea, that at least I should hear a great _quantity_ of discourse, however I might chance to think of its _quality_; and, moreover, I was rejoicing for two entire days at the prospect that lay before me: but disappointment was the portion of every novice, who, like myself, looked for “a feast of reason and a flow of soul.” Of all the dull uninteresting meetings of which I ever happened to be a member, I willingly vote the palm of pre-eminence to that at Sir Marmaduke Liston’s. However, as knowledge is always valuable, I stand indebted to that assembly for one piece of information, which, till now, I have taken upon hearsay evidence. It was in Lady Liston’s drawing room that I first saw that gorgon, yclept “_Blue-stocking_,” which we used to think was like other spectres, the offspring of a distempered imagination. I can assure you that such things are, and, if I was heartily disgusted with the authors at dinner, I was no less heartily nauseated by the _Blues_ at tea. The former only reminded me of rival tradesmen, who forgot a part of their craft, namely, adulation of their patron, in the absorbing energy of their hatred towards each other. As to _conversation_, we had none, for every man seemed afraid to utter a sentence, lest his neighbour should slip it into _a book_, and thus defraud the real owner. A few nods, shrugs, and _hahs_, which might be interpreted _ad libitum_, occupied the place of language, and constituted nearly the whole intercourse of _mind_ which was not directed to the _matter_ of fish, flesh, and fowls. On _these_, indeed, and their individual merits, our _wittenagemot_ were eloquent “with all alliteration’s artful aid;” and they also proved themselves nothing loath to exercise whatever critical _acumen_ any of them possessed on Sir Marmaduke’s wines which were discussed from humble port to imperial tokay, with glistening eyes, glazed noses, and expanding vests. Yet you may tell Mr. Oliphant that we had not even _allusion_ to a feast of the ancients, not a word of old Falernian, nor a single glimmering of classic lore, though in the fields of Horace one would imagine that the company might have expatiated on neutral ground without danger of petty larceny on any side. One prodigious person, who seemed like “Behemoth, biggest born,” and who quaffed accordingly, particularly diverted me: he sat next to a tall thin phantom who looked of Pharoah’s lean kine, and wore a little black cap on his skull, which appeared