In mediteval and modern Europe, the prevailing practice, down nearly to the middle -.of last century, was to have three meals in the day, the midday and not the evening meal being the principal one. The habits of all classes were early; four was a usual hour for rising, and five for breakfast. Twelve was the dinner-hour, when it was the .usage in England, down to queen Elizabeth's time, for every .table, from that of the twenty-shilling freeholder to the table in the baron's hall and abbey refectory, to be open to all comers, with free fare, bread, beef, and beer. Supper followed in the evening, a. less abundant repetition of dinner. In the course of the last 120 years, a revolution has been going on in the hour of dinner, which has gradually got later till it has reached the present usage of frotn six to eight in the evening among the more cultivated classes. The introduction of tea and coffee has, to a certain extent, changed our habits as regards. meals. They form an essential part of our breakfast, which is later than that of our ancestors, from nine to ten. The meal calle'd tea is but a part of dinner, and supper, as a regular meal, has nearly disappeared. A light meal, called luncheon, is often taken
between breakfast and dinner. Our dinner has therefore come nearly to correspond with the supper of our ancestors. This change of hours has brought with it one impor tant change to the better in social habits; the excessive drinking, so common during the Georgian era, even among, people of refinement, has disappeared; the long carousals of that period have been abridged to au hour, or half an hour, spent over wine after dinner. In Brit,ain, dinner is, more than anywhere else, made a social meal, and an occasion of meeting one's friends; and public dinners, with toasts and after-dinner speeches, are a characteristically British mode of celebrating any public event or anniversary. In France and Italy, the gradual advance of the dinner-hour has not proceeded further than four or five o'clock. In Germany, the usage still obtains, to a large extent, of an early dinner and a supper. One o'clock is a usual dinner-bour, and even the court hour has hardly advanced beyond three and four. In Vienna, and some other parts of Germany, it is, not uncommon to have five meals a day—breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, and supper.