Note 24 — HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED.
Reading edition
A brawn's head, with an orange in its mouth, was at that time a fashionable winter dish; and it was a standing dish which might be marched from the pantry to the parlour, and give the semblance of plenty for forty days. This was perhaps one reason for our votary of Mammon making it the leading article in his bill of fare; the rest and residue of his feast is made up by a solitary egg.
A boiled egg was the usual dinner of Sir Hans Sloane. When he once complained to Dr. Mortimer that all his friends had deserted him, the Doctor observed that Chelsea was a considerable distance from the residence of most of them, and therefore they might be disappointed when they came to find he had so slight a dinner. This gentle remonstrance put the old Baronet in a rage, and he exclaimed, "Keep a table! Invite people to dinner! Would you have me ruin myself? Public credit totters already, and if (as has been presaged) there should be a national bankruptcy, or a sponge to wipe out the national debt, you may yet see me in a workhouse." His landed estate was at that time very considerable, and his museum worth much more than the twenty thousand pounds which was, however, given for it by Parliament.
Scanty as is our citizen's dinner, his table-cloth is ample. The founder of Guy's Hospital, which is the first private foundation in the world, was not so extravagant. His constant substitute for a table-cloth was either a dirty proof sheet of some book or an old newspaper.