A single request to eat of any particular dish, how elegant soever, is the utmost I allow. I strictly prohibit all earnest solicitations, all complaints that you have no appetite, which are sometimes little less than burlesque, and always impertinent and troublesome. And here, however low it may appear to some readers, as I have known omissions of this kind give offence, and sometimes make the offenders, who have been very well-meaning persons, ridiculous, I cannot help mentioning the ceremonial of drinking healths at table, which is always to begin with the lady's and next the master's of the house. When dinner is ended, and the ladies retired, though I do not hold the master of the feast obliged to fuddle himself through complacence (and, indeed, it is his own fault generally if his company be such as would desire it), yet he is to see that the bottle circulate sufficient to afford every person present a moderate quantity of wine if he chuses it; at the same time permitting those who desire it either to pass the bottle or to fill their glass as they please. Indeed, the beastly custom of besotting, and ostentatious contention for pre-eminence in their cups, seems at present pretty well abolished among the better sort of people. Yet Methus still remains, who measures the honesty and understanding of mankind by a capaciousness of their swallow; who sings forth the praises of a bumper, and complains of the light in your glass; and at whose table it is as difficult to preserve your senses as to preserve your purse at a gaming-table or your health at a b--y-house. On the other side, Sophronus eyes you carefully whilst you are filling out his liquor. The bottle as surely stops when it comes to him as your chariot at Temple-bar; and it is almost as impossible to carry a pint of wine from his house as to gain the love of a reigning beauty, or borrow a shilling of P---- W----. But to proceed. After a reasonable time, if your guest intends staying with you the whole evening, and declines the bottle, you may propose play, walking, or any other amusement; but these are to be but barely mentioned, and offered to his choice with all indifference on your part. What person can be so dull as not to perceive in Agyrtes a longing to pick your pockets, or in Alazon a desire to satisfy his own vanity in shewing you the rarities of his house and gardens? When your guest offers to go, there should be no solicitations to stay, unless for the whole night, and that no farther than to give him a moral assurance of his being welcome so to do; no assertions that he shan't go yet; no laying on violent hands; no private orders to servants to delay providing the horses or vehicles--like Desmophylax, who never suffers any one to depart from his house without entitling him to an action of false imprisonment.