A supper for twelve Whigs, enriched by jobs, grants, bribes, lucky purchases and lucky sales of stock, was cheap at eighty pounds.

At the end of every course all the fine linen on the table was changed.

Those who saw the pyramids of choice wild fowl imagined that the entertainment had been prepared for fifty epicures at the least.

Only six birds' nests from the Nicobar islands were to be had in London; and all the six, bought at an enormous price, were smoking in soup on the board.

These fables were destitute alike of probability and of evidence.