As for the symposium, we shall have nothing to do with that vexed subject, further than just to hint--for we should be loath to exclude from the benefit of our proposed reform a certain numerous and respectable class of the community--that in ancient times it had no necessary connection with the dinner at all. A little wine-and-water was drunk during the dessert--never during the first course--and then the meal was over. The symposium was literally a drinking-party, given, for the sake of convenience, after the dinner-party; but so far from forming a part of the latter, the guests were sometimes different. It was, in fact, in this respect, like the evening company we occasionally find assembled in the drawing-room on getting up from our show-dinners.
But such references to the customs of bygone ages are introduced merely to shew, that among the most accomplished people of history, the social meal was looked upon as a field for the display of taste, not of that barbarian magnificence which consists in quantity and cost. The coena of the moderns should far excel that of the Greeks in elegance, refinement, and simplicity. We have all history for our teacher; we have a finer system of morals; we have a purer and holier religion; and a corresponding influence should be felt in our social manners. When the object of the feast is no longer the satisfaction of mere physical hunger, it should be something intended to minister to the appetites of the mind. When the dinner is no longer the chief thing, some trouble will doubtless be taken with the assortment of the company. Simultaneously with the business of eating and drinking, we shall have anecdote, jest, song, music, smiles, and laughter, to make us forget the business or troubles of the day; and in the morning, instead of arranging our debtor and creditor account of invitations, we shall throw in the evening's gratification to strike the balance, and then make haste to begin a new score.
Some few years ago, there resided in Long Acre an eccentric old Jew, named Jacob Benjamin: he kept a seed shop, in which he likewise carried on--not a common thing, we believe, in London--the sale of meal, and had risen from the lowest dregs of poverty, by industry and self-denial, till he grew to be an affluent tradesman. He was, indeed, a rich man; for as he had neither wife nor child to spend his money, nor kith nor kin to borrow it of him, he had a great deal more than he knew what to do with. Lavish it on himself he could not, for his early habits stuck to him, and his wants were few. He was always clean and decent in his dress, but he had no taste for elegance or splendour in any form, nor had even the pleasures of the table any charms for him; so that, though he was no miser, his money kept on accumulating, whilst it occurred to him now and then to wonder what he should do with it hereafter. One would think he need not have wondered long, when there were so many people suffering from the want of what he abounded in; but Mr Benjamin, honest man, had his crotchets like other folks. In the first place, he had less sympathy with poverty than might have been expected, considering how poor he had once been himself; but he had a theory, just in the main, though by no means without its exceptions--that the indigent have generally themselves to thank for their privations. Judging from his own experience, he believed that there was bread for everybody that would take the trouble of earning it; and as he had had little difficulty in resisting temptation himself, and was not philosopher enough to allow for the varieties of human character, he had small compassion for those who injured their prospects by yielding to it. Then he had found, on more than one occasion, that even to the apparently well-doing, assistance was not always serviceable. Endeavour was relaxed, and gratuities, once received, were looked for again. Doubtless, part of this evil result was to be sought in Mr Benjamin's own defective mode of proceeding; but I repeat, he was no philosopher, and in matters of this sort he did not see much farther than his nose, which was, however, a very long one.