AGITATION BY DINNER.
"NOTHING can be done without a dinner," is a national maxim which has been illustrated for the use of foreigners during their visit to this country. That M. Soyer should not be able to inau- gurate his Universal Symposium without a banquet or two, is na- tural enough; but that great enterprises and great doctrines should need the stimulus of cookery, is a fact that continues to ex- cite wonder amen..b ourselves, even since it has been recognized as a fundamental truth in public affairs. We know, and have long known, that neither Protection nor Free-trade dares despise the potency of the feast. The Crystal Palace itself might never have reared its transept but for sundry banquets ; and it still looks to the dinner-table, as at Richmond, for much of its moral effect.
The main reason is obvious—the dinner brings men together ; but it is not, we conceive, by such convening that the dinner works out its public influence. When the men come together, they do nothing more than they had done previously ; except, in- deed, that the collection after dinnermay be rather freer for the wine imbibed than a subscription in cold blood would have proved. When the wine is paid for by the committee, to say nothing of the greater respectability, the outlay is simple investment. Be- yond that influence, however, the dinners seldom achieve anything more than they have done before. Nevertheless, we all feel that the gentlemen who took the trouble to go down to Richmond to eat a magnificent dinner, and after that dinner to recite for the thousandth time the sound and identical doctrines that have been expounded by every writer and speaker during the last month on the merits of the Exposition, of industry, international gatherings, and the victories of peace, have by no means wasted their time. A doctrine may be agitated, but it is scarcely recognized as an established tenet until it has been dined upon : truth does not ac- quire its full force until it has been associated with good cheer.
Nay, the moral influence depends in a remarkable degree upon the quality of the cheer. A plain substantial dinner—the good homely English fare of hot joints and pastry, with beer, but " wine not in- cluded in the ticket," amounts to a" demonstration," and is not to be despised ; but it has nothing like the force of a banquet sumptu- ous and recherche, graced by " rosbif de mouton a l'Anglaise," " pommes de terre au naturel," or " cornichons au nez retrousse superbs," and other inscrutable dainties described in the verna- cular of the cuisine. How much, therefore, in the propagation of doctrine, rests with the contractor for the feast! It is satisfactory to think that if the respectable but misguided landlord of Highbury Barn can lend his character and kitchen to the dissemination of ultra Revolutionary mutton chops, Red Republican stewed steaks, or even Socialistic potatoes, how much more effectually sound English doctrine has been upheld by Messrs. Bathe and Breach ; and how effectively the most exalted and enlightened Liberal Con- servatism of Europe, the most ameliorative philosophy and exalted natural theology, can be expanded by the chef de cuisine of the Castle Inn at Richmond or M. Beyer at Gore House ! At first it is both a humbling and a disheartening view, that truth must condescend to be propagated by dinner ; but, like all " great facts," this too has its solace. If it rebukes the pride of intellect to accept such overt assistance from the cook, does not the very fact suggest to us an easy mode of extending the highest truths among the benighted of our own or foreign lands. Why not establish a British and Foreign Society for the Spread of Ban=7 quets among the Heathen, or an Association for the Encourage- ment of Dinners among the Lower Orders? We have a feeling that a good meal might be made to carry conviction home to many minds which are now in a sad state ; that by such means Chartism, or even Socialism, might be met on the strongest ground ; and that the appeal thus made to the profoundest instincts of humanity would not be vain. Decidedly, the philanthropic and the zealous have not yet paid nearly enough attention to that effective means of proselytism—dinner-extension.
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