Ednburgh Suppers

When dinners are given here, they are invitations of form. The entertainment of pleasure is their suppers, which resemble the petit soupers of France. Of these they are very fond; and it is a mark of their friendship to be admitted to be of the party. it is in these meetings that
the pleasures of society and conversation reign, when restraints of ceremony are banished, and you see people really as they are: and I must say, in honour of the Scotch, that 1 never met with a more agreeable people, with more pleasing or more insinuating manners, in my life, These little parties generally consist of about seven or eight persons which prevents the conversation from being particular and which it always must be in larger companies. During the supper, which continues some time, the Scotch Ladies drink more wine than an English woman could well bear; but the climate requires it, and probablY in some measure it may enliven their natural vivacity.

Edward Topham (l751~l820)
Letters from EdinbU~h 1774-1775 (1776)

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