feast or entertainment where people regale themselves with pleasant foods or fruits.

the Manege, that small part of the branch of a bridle that is under the eye; which being rounded like a small rod, gathers and joins the extremities of the bit to the branch, in such a manner that the banquet is not seen, but covered by the cope, or that part of the bit that is next the branch.

Banquet-Line, an imaginary line drawn, in making a bit, along the banquet, and prolonged up or down, to adjust the designed force or weaknesses of the branch, in order to make it stiff or easy.

Banquette, in Fortification, a little foot-bank, or elevation of earth, forming a path which runs along the inside of a parapet, upon which the musketeers get up, in order to discover the counterscarp, or to fire on the enemy, in the moat or in the covert-way.

Banqueting Room or House. See Saloon.

The ancient Romans supped in the atrium, or vestibule, of their houses; but, in after-times, magnificent saloons, or banqueting-rooms, were built, for the more commodious and splendid entertainment of their guests. Lucullus had several of these, each distinguished by the name of some god; and there was a particular rate of expense appropriated to each. Plutarch relates with what magnificence he entertained Cicero and Pompey, who went with design to surprize him, by only telling a slave who waited, that the cloth should be laid in the Apollo. The emperor Claudius, among others, had a splendid banqueting-room named Mercury. But everything of this kind was outdone by the lustre of that celebrated banqueting-house of Nero, called domus au-