"At table intercourse is prevented as much as possible by a huge centre piece of plate and flowers, which cuts off the one half of the company from the other, and some very awkward mistakes have taken place in consequence, from guests having made personal observations upon those who were actually opposite to them. It seems strange that people should be invited to be hidden from one another. Besides the centre piece, there are usually massive branches to assist in interrupting communication; and perhaps you are placed between two persons with whom you are not acquainted, and have no community of interest to become so. "When the company is arranged, then comes the perpetual motion of the attendants, the perpetual declining of what you do not want, and the perpetual waiting for what you do, or a silent resignation to your fate. To desire a potato, and to see the dish handed to your next neighbour, and taking its course in a direction from you round an immense table, with occasional retrograde movements and digressions, is one of the unsatisfactory occurrences which frequently take place; but, perhaps, the most distressing incident in a grand dinner is to be asked to take champagne, and, after much delay, to see the butler extract the bottle from a cooler, and hold it nearly parallel to the horizon, in order to calculate how much he is to put into the first glass to leave any for the second. To relieve him and yourself from the chilling difficulty, the only alternative is to change your mind and prefer sherry, which, under the circumstances, has rather an awkward effect. These and an infinity of minor evils are constantly experienced amidst the greatest displays, and they have, from sad experience, made me come to the conclusion that a combination of state and calculation is the horror of horrors. Some good bread and cheese and a jug of ale, comfortably set before me and heartily given, are heaven and earth in comparison. "I must not omit to mention, amongst other obstacles to sociability, the present excessive breadth of fashionable tables, for the purpose of holding, first, the cumbrous ornaments and lights before spoken of; secondly, in some cases the dessert, at the same time with the side dishes; and, lastly, each person's cover, with its appurtenances; so that to speak across the table, and through the intervening objects, is so inconvenient as to be nearly impracticable. To crown all, is the ignorance of what you have to eat, and the impossibility of duly regulating your appetite. To be sure, in many particulars, you may form a tolerably accurate guess, as that, at one season, there will be partridges in the third course, and at another pigeons, in dull routine.