plates of stewed soft clams and corn that had been cooked and ready for us at 2 P.M. The women put their plates on the grass, and their feet in them, so at least to have a dry footing. The champagne was parboiled, the company enveloped in darkness, and famished, so that all pronounced this kind of clambake picnic a species of _fête_ not to be indulged in knowingly a second time. The great wit of the day, his boon companion, called it “The Melancholy Fête.” The following anonymous lines on this clambake were sent me: AN ADAPTATION OF A LAMENTATION. Clams, clams, clams, Will always be thrown in my teeth. Clams, clams, clams! I’ll be crowned with a chowder wreath. Bread and pickles and corn, Corn and pickles and bread. Whenever I sleep huge ghosts appear With _clam_orous mouths to be fed. Oh, women, with appetites strong! Oh, girls, who I thought lived on air! I did not mean to leave you so long With nothing to eat, I declare. Clams, clams, clams! I have nothing but clams on the brain. I’m sure all my life, and after my death I’ll be roasted and roasted again. Oh, tugs, why could you not pull? Oh, winds, why would you not blow? I’m sure I did all that man could do That my clambake shouldn’t be slow. Not in the least discouraged by this failure, returning to New York, he planned three dinners to be given by himself and two of his friends, to be the three handsomest dinners ever given in this city. Lorenzo Delmonico exclaimed, “What are the people coming to! Here, three gentlemen come to me and order three dinners, and each one charges me to make his dinner the best of the three. I am given an unlimited order, ‘Charge what you will, but make my dinner the best.’” Delmonico then said to me, “I told my cook to call them the Silver, Gold, and Diamond dinners, and have novelties at them all.” I attended these three dinners. Among other dishes, we had canvasback duck, cut up and made into an _aspic de canvasback_, and again, string beans, with truffles, cold, as a salad, and truffled ice cream; the last dish, strange to say, very good. At one dinner, on opening her napkin, each fair lady guest found a gold bracelet with the monogram of Jerome Park in chased gold in the centre. Now it must be remembered that this habit of giving ladies presents at dinners did not originate in this city. Before my day, the wealthy William Gaston, a bachelor, gave superb dinners in Savannah, Ga., and there, always placed at each lady’s plate a beautiful Spanish fan of such value that they are preserved by the grandchildren of those ladies, and are proudly exhibited to this day. ON THE BOX SEAT AT NEWPORT. CHAPTER XV.