It is pleasant to read of civic and electioneering banquets--to see pictures of the patriots enjoying some of the rewards of virtue. The dinner was spread on six tables; and in order to prevent confusion, everything was put on the table at once, so that when the covers--if there were any covers--were removed, the company “saw their dinner.” Then friends and neighbors helped each other with loving zeal from the dishes before them; the waiters looked to the bottles, while the guests handed the plates to each other. Only to think of this dinner makes one hear the clatter of knives and forks, the buzz of talk--serious talk, because the average elector of Westminster in 1784 was not a person who laughed much; indeed, one [Illustration: “THEMISTOCLES” (LORD HOOD), FROM “THE RIVAL CANDIDATES.”] imagines that, after the humiliations and disgraces of the American war, there could be very little laughter left in the country at all, even among the young and the light-hearted. Music there was, however,--music to uplift the hearts of the despondent,--violins and a ’cello, with perhaps flutes and horns. Singing there was, also, after dinner. During the banquet there was not much drinking; it would be sinful, with the whole night before one, to destroy a generous thirst at the outset. Men of that age were very powerful performers at the table; we neither eat nor drink with the noble, copious, and indiscriminate voracity of our ancestors; without any scientific observance of order these Friends of Liberty tackled all that stood before them: beef and mutton, fish and apple pie, turkey, tongue, ham, chicken, soup, and jelly--“plentifully dispersed and fashionably set out.” Faces grew shiny with long-continued exercise; those who wore wigs pushed them back; those who wore powder found it slipping from their hair on their shoulders; bones--the succulent bones of duck and chicken--were freely gnawed and sucked, as was still the custom even in circles much higher than that which these Friends of Liberty adorned. [Illustration: “DEMOSTHENES” (CHARLES JAMES FOX), FROM “THE RIVAL CANDIDATES.”] At last the dishes were removed, and the business of the evening, with the drinking, began. It is not stated, unfortunately, whether the Friends of Liberty drank port or punch. Contemporary pictures incline one to favor the theory of punch. We of too degenerate age are wont to complain of the after-dinner speech. Which of us could now sit out the speeches and the toasts at this banquet, and survive? Even the Speaker would recoil in terror at the prospect of such a night.