It was not exactly a temperate age. Heavy meals and copious potations play an important part in Dickens's novels; and a great many men ate and drank a great deal more than was good for them. Abernethy's method of dealing with the voracious Alderman might still have been profitably followed by Victorian practitioners. But we say "men" advisedly, for there is no evidence that women gorged and guzzled, certainly none to support the fantastic account of English dinner parties given by a French writer and reproduced in 1861 by _Punch_ with characteristic comments:-- "At a dinner party the ladies retire into another room, after having partaken very moderately of wine; and while the gentlemen empty bottles of Port, Madeira, Claret and Champagne, it is a constant habit among the ladies to empty bottles of brandy." [Sidenote: _The National Type_] The extract is taken from a book on _Les Anglais, Londres et L'Angleterre_, with an introduction by no less eminent an authority than M. Emile de Girardin, who vouched for its accuracy. According to the writer the English cared for nothing but roast beef, porter, and spirits. They were "averse to contemplation," had not the remotest conception of grace or feeling, their "climate, coarse food, and black drink being utterly opposed to any mental refinement. To possess taste it is necessary to possess soul, and a large soul; and the English possess nothing but appetite." It was a gross libel, but the misconception was mutual, and _Punch_ had done a great deal to foster it by his persistent representation of the "Mossoo" as a mere figure of fun. And let it never be forgotten that the notion of the English as a gross and crapulous race was in great measure due to our caricaturists, Gillray and Rowlandson, and even Hogarth. We chose the beefy, burly, sixteen-stone top-booted farmer as the national type, and we have retained it long after "John Bull" ceased to be typical of the breed physically. It became a caricature, but we have only ourselves to blame if foreign artists caricatured our own caricature. The process of the mutual discovery of France and England has moved far since the 'sixties, and has reached its climax (on the French side) in _Les Silences du Colonel Bramble_, by our good friend M. André Maurois--a work recently described by Mr. H. A. L. Fisher as "the best psychological study of the English character ever written by a foreigner." [Illustration: Brougham Drives Up--Two Ladies in Toxophilite Costume on the Box, One Driving--Pair of Top-booted Legs Sticking Out of Window. DRIVING LADY (loq.): "Oh, Frank, dear, only fancy, George has got so tipsy at the Archery Meeting, that we've been obliged to put him inside, and drive home ourselves--and poor Clara has pinched her fingers dreadfully putting on the drag, coming down Blunsden Hill!"]