no wine, out of which, to speak com- | chauffés and the art of making the remercially, you get your returns so di-mains of one day's entertainment rectly. The popping, and fizzing, and contribute to the elegance and plenty agreeable nervous hurry in pouring and drinking, give it a prestige and an extra importance it makes twice the appearance, has twice the effect, and doesn't cost you more than a bottle of your steady, old, brown sherry, which has gathered on his head the interest of accumulated years in your cellar. When people have had plenty of champagne, they fancy they have been treated liberally. If you wish to save, save upon your hocks, Sauternes, and Moselles, which count for nothing, but disappear down careless throats like so much toast and water. I have made this remark about champagne. All men of the world say they don't care for it; all gourmands swear and vow that they prefer sillery a thousand times to sparkling, but look around the table and behold! We all somehow drink it. All who say they like the sillery will be found drinking the sparkling. Yes, beloved sparkler, you are an artificial, barley-sugared, brandied beverage, according to the dicta of connoisseurs. You are universally sneered at, and said to have no good in you. But console yourself, you are universally drunken you are the wine of the world-you are the liquor in whose babbles lies the greatest amount of the sparkle of good spirits. May I die but I will not be ashamed to proclaim my love for you! You have given me much pleasure and never any pain you have stood by me in many hard moments, and cheered me in many dull ones you have whipped up many flagging thoughts, and dissipated many that were gloomy-you have made me hope, ay, and forget. Ought a man to disown such a friend? Incomparably the best champagne I know is to be found in England. It is the most doctored, the most brandied, the most barley-sugared, the most winy wine in the world. As such, le: us hail, and honor, and love it. Those precious words about re of the next day's dinner, cannot be too fondly pondered over by housekeepers, or too often brought into practice. What is it, ladies, that so often drives out men to clubs, and leaves the domestic hearth desolate what, but bad dinners? And whose fault is the bad dinners but yours yours, forsooth, who are too intellectual to go into the kitchen, and too delicate to think about your husbands' victuals? I know a case in which the misery of a whole life, nay, of a whole series of little and big lives, arose from a wife's high and mighty neglect of the good things of life, when ennui, estrangement, and subsequent ruin and suicide, arose out of an obstinate practice of serving a leg of mutton three days running in a small respectable family. My friend, whom I shall call Mortimer Delamere (for why not give the unfortunate fellow as neat and as elegant a name as possible, as I am obliged to keep his own back out of regard for his family?) — Mortimer Delamere was an ornament of the Stock Exchange, and married at the age of twenty-five. Before marriage he had a comfortable cottage at Satton, whither he used to drive after business-hours, and where you had roast ducks, toasted cheese, steaks and onions, wonderful bottled stout and old port, and other of those savory but somewhat coarse luxuries, with which house-keeping bachelors sometimes recreate their palates. He married, and quitted his friends and his little hospitalities, his punch and his cigars, for a genteel wife and house in the Regent's Park, where I once had the misfortune to take pot luck with him. That dinner, which I never repeatcd, showed me at once that Delamere's happiness was a wreck. He had cold mutton and mouldy potatoes. His genteel wife, when he humbly said that he should have preferred the mutton hashed, answered supercili ously that the kitchen was not her | He frequented not only the library province, that as long as there was food sufficient, she did not heed its quality. She talked about poetry and the Rev. Robert Montgomery all the evening, and about quarter of an hour after she had left us to ourselves and the dessert, summoned us to exceedingly weak and muddy coffee in the drawing-room, where she subsequently entertained us with bad music, sung with her own cracked, false, genteel voice. My usual politeness and powers of conversation did not of course desert me even under this affliction; and she was pleased to say at the close of the entertainment that she had enjoyed a highly intellectual evening, and hoped Mr. Fitz-Boodle would repeat his visit. Mr. Fitz-Boodle would have seen her at Jericho first! But what was the consequence of a life of this sort? When the mutton is habitually cold in a house, depend on it the affection grows cold too. Delamere could not bear that comfortless, flavorless, frigid existence. He took refuge in the warmth of a club. and coffee room, but, alas! the smok. ing-room and card-room. He became a viveur and jolly dog about town, neglecting the wife who had neglected him, and who is now separated from him, and proclaimed to be a martyr by her genteel family, whereas, in fact, her own selfishness was the cause of his falling away. Had she but condescended to hash his mutton and give him a decent dinner, the poor fellow would have been at home to this day; would never have gone to the club or played with Mr. Denman, who won his money; would never have been fascinated by Senhora Dolora, who caused his duel with Captain Tufto; would never have been obliged to fly to America after issuing bills which he could not take up-bills, alas! with somebody else's name written on them. I venture to say that if "The Practical Cook" had been published, and Mrs. Delamere had condescended to peruse it; if she had read pages 3032, for instance, with such simple recipes as these, "BILLS OF FARE FOR PLAIN FAMILY DINNERS. Potatoes browned below the Roast. Potatoes. Stewed Endive. Potatoes. DINNERS OF FIVE DISHES. Peas, or Mulligatawny Soup. or Plain Fritters. A Charlotte. Mashed Turnip or Pickles. Rice or Pickles. Potatoes. Roast of Pork, or Pork Chops-Sage Sauce, or Sauce piquante. Boiled Cod, with Oyster, Egg, or Dutch Sauce. Mutton Broth. With Caper Sauce, or Parsley and Butter. Carrots or Turnips. she would have had her husband at home every day. As I read them over myself, dwelling upon cach, I say inwardly, "Could I find a wife who did not sing, and who would daily turn me out such dinners as these, Fitz-Boodle himself would be a family man." See there how the dishes are made to play into each other's hands; how the roast shoulder of mutton of Monday (though there is no mention made of the onion sauce) becomes the currie or grill of Tuesday; how the boiled cod of Thursday becomes the bêchemel of Friday, a still better thing than boiled cod! Feed a man according to those recipes, and I engage to say he never would dine out, especially on Saturdays, with that delicious bouilli garnished with onions, though, to be sure, there is a trifle too much beef in the carte of the day; and I for my part should prefer a dish of broiled fish in the place of the lamb-chops with potatoes, the dinner as it stands here being a trifle too brown. One day in the week a man might have a few friends and give them any one of these: "GOOD FAMILY DINNERS OF SEVEN DISHES. Mashed Potatoes, Crimped Salmon. in small shapes. Lobster Sauce, or Parsley and Butter. Mince Pies, or Rizzoles. Oxford Dumplings. Chickens. Apple Sauce. Savory Patties. Macaroni. Very moderate means might enable a man to give such a dinner as this; and how good they all are! I should like to see eight good fellows over No. 3, for instance, - six men, say, and two ladies. They would not take any onion soup, of course, though all the men would; but the veal sweetbreads, and the remove, a charlotte, are manifestly meant for them. There would be no champagne, the dinner is too jolly and bourgeois for that; but after they had partaken of a glass of wine and had retired, just three bottles of excellent claret would be discussed by us six, and every man who went up stairs to coffee would make himself agreeable. In such a house the coffee would be good. The way to make good coffee a secret known only to few is Mince Veal. Mashed Potatoes. Tongue on Spinach, or a Piece of Ham. Salad. Veal Sweetbreads. housekeepers,-it is to have plenty of coffee. Thus do Joseph Bregion and Anne Miller care for high and low. They provide the domestic dinner to be calm in the bosoms of private families; they invent bills of fare for the jolly family party, that pleasantest of all meetings; and they expand upon occasion and give us the magnificent parade banquet of three courses, at which kings or fellows of colleges may dine. If you will ask your cook at St. Boniface to try either of the dinners marked out for January and February, and will send your obedient servant a line, he for one will be happy to come down and partake of it at Oxford. I could go on prattling in this easy innocent way for hours, my dear Lionel, but the editor of this magazine (about whose capabilities I have my own opinion) has limited me to space, and that space is now pretty nearly occupied. I should like to have had a chat with you about the Indian dishes, the chapter on which is very scientific and savory. The soup and broth chapter is rich, learned, and philosophical. French cookery is not, of course, approfondi, or elaborately described, but nobly raissonné, like one of your lectures on a Greek play, where you point out in eloquent terms the salient beauties, sketch with masterly rapidity the principal characters, and gracefully unweave the complications of the "The metre. But I have done. Practical Cook" will triumph of his own force without my puny aid to drag the wheels of his car. Let me fling a few unpretending flowers over it, and sing, Io to the victor! Happy is the writer, happy the possessor, happy above all the publishers, of such a book! Farewell, dear Lionel; present my respectful remembrances to the master of your college and our particular chums in the common-room. I am come to town for Christmas, so you may send the brawn to my lodgings as soon as you like. Your faithful, G. S. F. B. [A Brother of the Press on the History of a Literary Man.] LAMAN BLANCHARD, AND THE CHANCES OF THE LITERARY PROFESSION. IN A LETTER TO THE REVEREND FRANCIS SYLVESTER AT ROME, FROM MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH, ESQ. London, Feb. 20, 1846. MY DEAR SIR,- Our good friend and patron, the publisher of this magazine, has brought me your message from Rome, and your demand to hear news from the other great city of the world. As the forty columns of "The Times" cannot satisfy your reverence's craving, and the details of the real great revolution of England which is actually going on do not sufficiently interest you, I send you a page or two of random speculations upon matters connected with the literary profession: they were suggested by reading the works and the biography of a literary friend of ours, lately deceased, and for whom every person who knew him had the warmest and sincerest regard. And no wonder. It was impossible to help trusting a man so thoroughly gener ous and honest, and loving one who was so perfectly gay, gentle, and amiable. A man can't enjoy every thing in the world; but what delightful gifts and qualities are these to have! Not having known Blanchard as intimately as some others did, yet, I take it, he had in his life as much pleasure as falls to most men; the kindest friends, the most affectionate family, a heart to enjoy both; and a career not undistinguished, which I hold to be the smallest matter of all. But we have a cowardly dislike, or compassion for, the fact of a man dying poor. Such a one is rich, bilious, and a curmudgeon, without heart or stom ach to enjoy his money, and we set him down as respectable; another is morose or passionate, his whole view of life seen blood-shot through passion, or jaundiced through moroseness; or he is a fool who can't see, or feel, or enjoy any thing at all, with no ear for music, no eye for beauty, no heart for love, with nothing except money: we meet such people every day, and respect them somehow. That donkey brouses over five thousand acres; that madman's bankers come bowing out to his carriage. You feel secretly pleased at shooting over the acres, or driving in the carriage. At any rate, nobody thinks of compassionating their owners. We are a race of flunkies, and keep our pity for the poor. "The Times" gave an extract the other day from a work by one Doctor Carus, physician to the King of Saxony, who attended his royal master on his recent visit to England, and has written a book concerning the journey. Among other London lions, the illustrious traveller condescended to visit one of the largest and most remarkable, certainly, of metropolitan roarers "The Times" printingoffice; of which, the Doctor, in his capacity as a man of science, gives an exceedingly bad, stupid, and blundering account. Carus was struck with "disgust," he says, at the prodigious size of the paper, and at the thought which suggested itself to his mind from this enormity. There was as much printed every day as would fill a thick volume. It required ten years of life to a philosopher to write a volume. The issuing of these daily tomes was unfair upon philosophers, who were put out of the market; and unfair on the public, who were made to receive (and, worse still, to get a relish for) crude daily speculations, and frivolous ephemeral news, where they ought to be fed and educated upon stronger and simpler diet. I don't mean to affix the plush personally upon the kind and distinguished gentleman and writer who has written Blanchard's Memoir; but it seems to me that it is couched in much too despondent a strain; that the lot of the hero of the little story was by no means deplorable; and there is not the least call at present, to be holding up literary men as martyrs. Even that prevailing sentiment which regrets that means should not be provided for giving them leisure, We have heard this outcry a hunfor enabling them to perfect great dred times from this big-wig body. works in retirement, that they should The world gives up a lamentable porwaste away their strength with fugi- tion of its time to fleeting literature; tive literature, &c., I hold to be often authors who might be occupied upon uncalled for and dangerous. I be- great works fritter away their lives in lieve, if most men of letters were to producing endless hasty sketches. be pensioned, I am sorry to say I be- Kind, wise, and good Doctor Arnold lieve they wouldn't work at all; and deplored the fatal sympathy which of others, that the labor which is to"The Pickwick Papers" had created answer the calls of the day is the one quite suited to their genius. Suppose Sir Robert Peel were to write to you, and, enclosing a check for 20,000l., instruct you to pension any fifty deserving authors, so that they might have leisure to retire and write "great' works, on whom would you fix? People in the big book interest, too, ery out against the fashion of fugitive literature, and no wonder. For instance, among the boys of his school; and it is a fact that "Punch" is as regularly read among the boys at Eton as the Latin Grammar. Arguing for liberty of conscience against any authority, however great -against Doctor Arnold himself, who seems to me the greatest, wisest, and best of men that has appeared for eighteen hundred years; let us take a stand at once, and ask, Why should not the day have its literature? |