"Besides the large tables I have just mentioned," continues Roubo, "there are also hollow tables, commonly termed horse-shoe tables, either with the upper end round or forming simply an elbow. Both these tables are very convenient, inasmuch as the service can be performed from the inside without interfering with those who are seated round. Their only disadvantage is that they can only receive artificial surtouts of moderate size, which is in my opinion no great misfortune, for in point of fact the enormous surtouts with which the tables of the great are loaded serve only to render the waiting more difficult and even inconvenient, and to obstruct the view of all the guests, who can, only with difficulty and manoeuvring, see the other side of the table." The breadth of Roubo's horseshoe table is three feet, and the height of all his eating-tables twenty-seven to twenty-eight inches.

A rare volume called "Le Cannameliste Francais," published at Nancy in 1761 by 10

Gilliers, who was head butler, or chef d' office, and distiller to King Stanislas, may be consulted with profit by those who are curious as to the service and aspect of eighteenth-century tables. It is a big volume, where, in the midst of charming copper-plate engravings representing desserts laid out in toy-gardens, with grass-plots of chenille, and walks of nonpareille to imitate gravel, you find recipes for pomegranate jam, syrup of jasmine, candy of violets, roses, and jonquils - odorous and ethereal quintessences which remind one of the sweetmeats of a feast in the "Arabian Nights." Gilliers's book is a complete manual of the art of delicate feasting according to the received ideas of the time of Louis XV. About this matter of tables, Gilliers has the most delightfully fantastic notions. The classification of tables into round, square, oblong, and horse-shoe forms does not satisfy him ; he maintains that a table may have any form that we please to give to it, and in a cut which we here reproduce he shows us a table of most amusing and capricious contour, suggestive of the influence of contemporary rocaille forms. This table is built up by means of composite tops, keyed on treadles. In his book, Gilliers gives a dozen plans of tables of capricious arabesque and rocaille forms, accompanied by minute directions for drawing the figures and sawing them out of deal boards. To make such tables is very easy and simple, and I have no doubt that if some lady would take the trouble to give a grand feast at a table such as the one figured in our cut, she would not regret her elegant initiative.

It seems to me that in this matter of dining-tables we might with advantage struggle against tradition and devote just a little reasoning to the question. Let us take, for instance, the large round tables used in many of the New York club-houses. These tables are monuments; their diameter enor-mous; their centre quite beyond the reach of those who are seated around the periphery; the "horizontal surface raised above the ground" is greater than is needed, and much of it remains waste to be encumbered only by massive and useless ornaments, plate, or what not. And yet there are doubtless many who imagine that these round tables are similar in all essentials to those which the Arthurian legend and the romances of chivalry have rendered famous. This is probably a mistake; the round tables of chivalry were, I imagine, hollow or broken circles like the table shown in the accompanying cut taken from an illuminated manuscript of the fourteenth century. With the exception of the fixed seats or stalls, which seem difficult of access, this round table is perfectly convenient; it is no wider than is necessary; it is covered with a fair and beautifully embroidered cloth, and it is most convenient for the service, which is performed by the little pages whom we see in the centre, discreetly attentive to the wants of the quaint old magnates who are seen in the act of dining.

With our modern round or square tables the service is always inconvenient. What can be more disagreeable than the ordinary modern system of service executed by waiters who approach the diner treacherously from behind, pass the dish over his left shoulder, and occasionally pour a few drops of gravy over his coat-sleeve ? Curiously enough, this question of serving feasts has not occupied the attention of many writers. Books on the duties of the maitre d'hotel are rare, and the matter has only been touched upon incidentally in the regular treatises on the culinary art, which were themselves rare until modern times; for, as the gastronomic poet, Dr. William King, has remarked,

Round Table Of Fourteenth Century.

" Tho' cooks are often men of pregnant wit, Thro' niceness of their subject few have writ."

In the Middle Ages, which were far more refined in manner than most people believe, the general disposition of the dining-table was borrowed from the usage of the abbeys and convents, and it was precisely the disposition still maintained in the English universities at the present day. The principal table was laid on a raised platform or floor at the upper end of the dining-hall, and received the name of "high table," a term still in use at Oxford and Cambridge. The guests sat on one side of the table only; the place of honor was in the centre; and the principal personage sat under a canopy or cloth of state, hung up for the occasion, or under a permanent panelled canopy curving outwards.

At Florence, in the time of the Renaissance, the guests appear to have sat on one side of the table and at the ends. Such is the arrangement in Pinturrichio's pictures of the Story of Griselidis now in the National Gallery at London. One of these pictures represents a feast served under a portico built in a garden. The guests are seated along one side and at the ends of a long and narrow table. The waiters carry long napkins thrown over their shoulders or streaming in the wind like scarfs as they walk. In the collection of Mr. Leyland, at London, there is a beautiful picture by Sandro Botticelli representing a feast served in a lovely green meadow under a portico having five pillars on each side. In the background, at a short distance off, is a sort of triumphal arch, and beyond it you see a landscape and a lake with boats and islands crowned with castles. In the foreground is a dresser richly draped with precious stuffs and laden with massive gold plate and parade dishes and ewers. There are two tables, arranged parallel and in perspective, and the guests are seated on one side only, at one table the women, and at the other the men, the former against a background of garlands of verdure and flowers stretched from pillar to pillar behind the bench on which they are seated. Remark this separation of the women from the men, and read an account of a bachelor's supper-party at Rome, given by Benvenuto Cellini, in his fascinating autobiography. "When the banquet was served and ready, and we were going to sit down to table, Giulio asked leave to be allowed to place us. This being granted, he took the women by the hand, and arranged them all upon the inner side, with my fair in the centre; then he placed all the men on the outside, and me in the middle. As a background to the women there was spread an espalier of natural jasmines in full beauty, which set off their charms to such great advantage that words would fail to describe the effect." (J. A. Symonds's translation.)