Note 19 — VIII. A QUIET EVENING.

In case this charge against Irving should be exploited by the “little English correspondent” who undertakes to describe his “Palace on the Thames,” let me say that for one who talks so well about eating, Irving—next to a great authority on gourmandize—recently dead, alas!—is the most moderate diner I know. He discourses of dishes with the eloquence of Brillat Savarin, and eats as frugally as the “Original Walker” did, and is as easily contented as was my late friend, Blanchard Jerrold (“Fin-Bec”), who wrote so much, and always so well, about the art of dining, that those who did not know him might naturally have regarded him as a gourmand. He knew the literature of “the table” thoroughly, but lived as simply as Irving does. It will be noted that it is the simplicity of the dinner under notice that awakens Irving’s enthusiasm. New York, by the way, has many restaurants, in addition to its most famous one (Delmonico’s) and the house in Lafayette place. The Hoffman House and the Brunswick are well-known for their excellent cuisine. Among the hotels that are equally famous for their chefs are the Everett House, the Windsor, the St. James, the Victoria, and the Clarendon. The latter is to New York what such establishments as Morley’s and the oldest West End hotels are to London. It is one of the pleasantest, and certainly the quietest, of New York houses. There are very bad hotels in the United States, and very good ones; dear hotels, and hotels where the charges are fair; but the general idea of uniform excellence and uniform dearness which obtains in England is incorrect. One class of houses which the English traveller misses is the comfortable family inn or tavern (where the landlord and landlady are in evidence all the time), common in England, France, and Germany; and the other absent luxuries, for the lack of which oysters and canvas-back ducks do not altogether compensate him, are the mutton-chop, the beefsteak, the ham and bacon, the sole, salmon, and bloaters of his own country.