The Hour For Dinner

The fashionable folk of Edward IV.'s court rose with the lark, dispatched their dinner at 11 o'clock, and shortly after 8 were wrapped in slumber. In the Northumberland House Book for 1512 it is set forth that the family rose at 6 in the morning, breakfasted at 7, dined at 10, and supped at 4 in th afternoon. The gates were all shut at 9, and no further ingresa or egress permitted. In 1570, at the University oí Oxford, it was usual to dine at 11 o'clock, and sup at 5 in the afternoon. The dinner hour, which was once as early as 10 o'clock, has gradually gat later and later, until now it would be thought very eccentric in the fashionable world to sit down to table earlier than half past 7 o'clock, while othem extend it to 9.