receives and sorts the new publications which are ever coming in, before he transfers them to the shelves of the library.
The noble drawing-room remains unchanged—the gilded ceiling, the old French tapestry covering the walls, the gilt tapestry chairs, the oaken floor, up and clown which the duke and Boswell walked conversing, while her grace made Dr. Johnson come and sit by her. All is the same, except that time has dealt kindly by the tapestry and the gilding, and refined them in their fading.
Faujas Saint-Fond, who spent three days in the castle a few years later, is full of praise of everything which he saw. The duke and his family, he says, spoke French with a purity not unworthy of the highest society in Paris. 
TAPESTRY BEDROOM. The cookery, with the exception of a few dishes, was French, and was excellent. There was an abundance of hot-house fruits. There were silver forks instead of "ces petits tridens d'acier bien aigus, en forme de dard, fixés sur un manche, dont on se sert ordinairement en Angleterre, mêmedans les maisons où l'on donne de fort bons dîners."[1] Still more did he rejoice at seeing napkins on the table, a rare sight in England. The hours of meals were, breakfast at ten o'clock, dinner at half-past four, and supper at ten. At dinner, after the ladies had withdrawn, "la cérémonie des toasts" lasted at least three-quarters of an hour![2]
At Inverary Johnson met not only the descendants of a long line
- ↑ Voyage en Angleterre, &c., i. 290.
- ↑ He gives the following curious account of an accommodation which we should scarcely have expected to find in the dining-room of Inverary: "Si, pendant les libations, le champagne mousseux fait ressentir son influence appéritive, le cas est prévu, et sans quitter la compagnie, on trouve dans de jolies encoignures, placés dans les angles de la salle, tout ce qui est nécessaire pour satisfaire à ce petit besoin." Voyage en Angleterre, &c., i. 294.
person who receives the rents and revenues of some corporations is still called chamberlain; as the chamberlain of London."—Beattie's Scotticisms, p. 24.
