ladies-in-waiting and pages-of-the-presence adorned noble as well as royal households.  The private chaplain of a great Whig duke, within the recollection of people whom I have known, used to preface his sermon with a prayer for the nobility, and “especially for the noble duke to whom I am indebted for my scarf”—­the badge of chaplaincy—­accompanying the words by a profound bow toward his Grace’s pew.  The last “running footman” pertained to “Old Q.”—­the notorious Duke of Queensberry, who died in 1810.  Horace Walpole describes how, when a guest playing cards at Woburn Abbey dropped a silver piece on the floor, and said, “Oh, never mind; let the Groom of the Chambers have it,” the Duchess replied, “Let the carpet-sweeper have it; the Groom of the Chambers never takes anything but gold.”

These grotesque splendours of domestic living went out with the eighteenth century.  Dr. Johnson, who died in 1784, had already noted their decline.  There was a general approach towards external equalization of ranks, and that approach was accompanied by a general diffusion of material enjoyment.  The luxury of the period was prodigal rather than refined.  There lies before me as I write a tavern bill for a dinner for seven persons in the year 1751.  I reproduce the items verbally and literally, and certainly the bill of fare is worth studying as a record of gastronomical exertion on a heroic scale:—­

Bread and Beer.  Potage de Tortue.  Calipash.  Calipees.  Un Pate de Jambon de Bayone.  Potage Julien Verd.  Two Turbots to remove the Soops.  Haunch of Venison.  Palaits de Mouton.  Selle de Mouton.  Salade.  Saucisses au Ecrevisses.  Boudin Blanc a le Reine.  Petits Pates a l’Espaniol.  Coteletts a la Cardinal.  Selle d’Agneau glace aux Cocombres.  Saumon a la Chambord.  Fillets de Saules Royales.  Une bisque de Lait de Maquereaux.  Un Lambert aux Innocents.  Des Perdrix Sauce Vin de Champaign.  Poulets a le Russiene.  Ris de Veau en Arlequin.  Quee d’Agneau a la Montaban.  Dix Cailles.  Un Lapreau.  Un Phesant.  Dix Ortolans.  Une Tourte de Cerises.  Artichaux a le Provensalle.  Choufleurs au flour.  Cretes de Cocq en Bonets.  Amorte de Jesuits.  Salade.  Chicken.  Ice Cream and Fruits.  Fruit of various sorts, forced.  Fruit from Market.  Butter and Cheese.  Clare.  Champaign.  Burgundy.  Hock.  White Wine.  Madeira.  Sack.  Cape.  Cyprus.  Neuilly.  Usquebaugh.  Spa and Bristol Waters.  Oranges and Lemons.  Coffee and Tea.  Lemonade.

The total charge for this dinner for seven amounted to L81, 11s. 6d., and a footnote informs the curious reader that there was also “a turtle sent as a Present to the Company, and dressed in a very high Gout after the West Indian Manner.”  Old cookery-books, such as the misquoted work of Mrs. Glasse, Dr. Kitchener’s Cook’s Oracle, and the anonymous but admirable Culina, all concur in their testimony to the enormous amount of animal food which went to make an ordinary meal, and the amazing variety of irreconcilable ingredients which were combined in a single dish.  Lord Beaconsfield, whose knowledge of this recondite branch of English literature was curiously minute, thus describes—­no doubt from authentic sources—­a family dinner at the end of the eighteenth century:—­