vegetables, and various delicate sauces, with which you make your _cuisine_ upon your own plate; puddings and game of all sorts follow, amongst which there is, always, to begin with, one dish, especially appropriate to the season. It is to the former article of diet (puddings), that English children are indebted, it is said, for their excellent health, and their magnificent rosy complexions. The cloth is at length removed, and the mahogany table shines forth in all its splendour. Dessert follows, consisting of a few sweetmeats, or _confitures_, but abounding in fruits from all five parts of the world, and the produce of all the four seasons, and including superb pineapples, Portugal grapes, almonds, red nuts of a delicious flavour, dates, figs, rich juicy oranges, etc., etc. The wine is brought on in glass decanters, ticketed and placed in silver stands. These stands glide along the shining table, which is as smooth as ice, in the midst of silver, or crystal vases filled with fruit, etc. The host, after helping himself to wine, pushes about the whole ‘battery’ of decanters, which, going the round of the table, soon regain their original situation. A quarter of an hour elapses, when the mistress of the house rises and retires, followed by all the ladies. It is then that the _séance de vin_ begins. The subject of conversation soon changes, and political questions are discussed. The conversation, without getting stormy, acquires that degree of warmth and animation, which a good dinner, when one is blessed with a strong head and a good digestion, generally inspires. Hard drinking has, generally speaking, fallen into desuetude. It is only foxhunters and country gentlemen who remain faithful, nowadays, to that ignoble custom. A gentleman who has any self-respect, never so far forgets himself as to get tipsy, for he would certainly be looked upon with an evil eye, by the company, if he were to enter the drawing-room with an indistinct articulation, or with trembling legs. Dinner is over about half-past nine. The gentlemen then rejoin the ladies to take tea and coffee, and the conversation turns, as before, upon the news of the day.” On 8 April, Consols rose to par, or £100 for £100 stock, for the first time for nearly a century. The last time they were at £100 was in 1749, the year after the peace of Aix la Chapelle; at which period the public debt was rather more than £78,000,000. The highest price the Three per Cents, ever rose to, previously, was in June, 1737, and again, in May, 1739, when they attained the high price of £107. In September, 1797, they fell to 47⅜, which is the lowest price to which they have ever fallen.