"The dessert--generally ordered at Messrs. Grange's, or at Owen's, in Bond Street--if for a dozen people, would cost, at least as many pounds. The wines were chiefly port, sherry, and hock; claret, and even Burgundy, being then designated as 'poor, thin, washy stuff.' A perpetual thirst seemed to come over people, both men and women, as soon as they had tasted their soup; as from that moment everybody was taking wine with everybody else, till the close of the dinner; and such wine as produced that class of Cordiality which frequently wanders into stupefaction. How all this sort of eating and drinking ended was obvious, from the prevalence of gout, and the necessity of every one making the pill-box their constant bedroom companion." It must have been costly, too, to have then acted as Lucullus; for those were not the days when steam annihilated distance, and brought tropical fruits to our doors, and when any vegetable could be grown, at any time, by means of electric light, and never allowing the plants any rest or sleep. Then, at all events, rarities in vegetables fetched a price, such as we should not now dream of paying. _Vide_ the following: "It is a standing order in the wealthy Company of Grocers to have plenty of green pease at their dinner, when they do not exceed the price of _four guineas a quart_; this year, from the unfavourableness of the season, they were not to be obtained under the price of six guineas; and, in consequence, the members were obliged so far to _narrow_ their indulgence, as to put up with turtle, turbot, venison, house lamb, turkey poults, asparagus, and French beans." This year of 1814 must, I am afraid, be given up to the high and mighty ones of this portion of the world, for it was, as I have said, an _annus mirabilis_, and ordinary people were, so to speak, nowhere. Now it is the Regent's daughter. She came of age--she wanted a household of her own; she wanted unrestricted intercourse with her mother--and she wanted a husband. She had no love for her father; what child could have any filial affection for a father who cared nothing for his daughter? She was forbidden to see her mother, and consequently longed for her. She was legally of age, and still was treated as a child.