wholesome correctives and his Majesty, at Lisson Grove, (which is the Versailles, the suburban retreat of the Grand Monarque of Cockaigne,) has in consequence committed of late few or no versicular trespasses against sense, language, and metre. To be sure, Corny Webb has given us a 66 gross of green sonnets," in the New Literary Pocket-Book; but except that they are all along alarmingly allitera tive, and hobble a little at times, as if they had corns, there is much pretty imagery in them; and, I hope, they will not be so useless to the publisher, as the "green spectacles," were to the Vicar of Wakefield, which Moses brought home from the fair. But, Christopher, this is not all that you have done you are, like Jaques, so full of matter," that the stray riches, which you pour out in your rambling way, set I know not how many artificers a working. Phoebus Apollo only knows the number of harps that lay unstrummed for want of subjects, till their possessors laid hold of some scattered thought of yours; and then made mayhap, a very passable set of verses, on the strength of it alone. You are like the wind, which bears about upon its pinions, abundance of plumed seeds, and recklessly lets them drop here and there, not at all mindful what may spring from the chance-given boon; whether it be a gorgeous amarynth, a nemo me impune lacesset thistle, or only a little diuretic dandelion-so is it with you, your winged words are tossed up, and go wherever Maga soars, and you little guess how germínant they are in many a soil, on which they alight. I freely confess to you, that I am one of those who take my catch-word from your pregnant compositions. Somewhere or other, you said, that you dreamed of having drunk up all the water in the reservoir on the Castle-Hill, (though, whether there be a reservoir or not in that place, I cannot tell.) Well, the hint so set my brain fermenting, and raised such "yeasty waves" in the medullary matter under my bumps, of constructiveness and ideality, that I had no peace till the following poem was brewed, fixed down, barrelled, and shipped for the land where Ebony groweth a tree of no unpropitious shelter! There is one drawback, however, to my satisfaction, for it turns out to have an unfortunate resemblance to the "Darkness" of his Ex-Lordship of Newstead, so that I am fearful that the originality of mine may be called in question. That said "Darkness" of the noble Baron, although it wears the physiognomy of a poem, may, if its physiology be narrowly pried into, be ascertained to have much more of the properties of a scientific paper. The problem he takes in hand may be thus enunciated :-" Given the practicability of popping an extinguisher over the sun, and of co-instantaneously stopping the increase of supplies which are known to augment in arithmetical ratio-find the length of candle light, and bonfire light, which will be afforded by the present stock of muttons on hand(vide Surveys of the Board of Agriculture,) by the store already imported of timber, pitch, rosin, &c. (vide Monthly Commercial Reports, Blackwood's Magazine,) and by all other homeraised combustible and luciferous matter." And really it is very well worked, as far as it goes, and as it is in a branch of physics hitherto not much rummaged into, it was not to be presumed that any thing farther than an approximation to a solution would be hit upon at first. It much astonieth me, that the Cambridge Philosophical Society have not had it read at any one of their sittings, considering that his Lordship is a member of the Ultra-Mathematical University, in what that society is a tender Neophyte, and possibly in want of so subtle a calculator as my Lord has shewn himself to be, in this first essor of his talents into the regions of physical science. Now, to conclude with a deprecation, for my say is almost said. “You, Christopher, lighted the taper of my inspiration; beware then, that you do not quench it with that pair of snuffers of evil augury, which you use in snuffing off the wick of many a hapless contributor's rush-light. For, even though (in that unpleasant business of rejection) you wield the implement with infinite grace, and a sort of chi rurgical avoidance of giving needless pain, yet all won't do rejeté is not consoled in his state of obfuscation, even by such flourishes of the hand as these. "We return your Hints towards ascertaining the System of Ethics likely to be predominant in Botany Bay, towards the close of this Centu ry, and although we cannot deny the talent it evinces, yet allow us to bày... I had a dream, which was not all-my-eye. To those who plied their handles; and the clouds Morn came and went and came and brought no rain, And they did swig, from hogsheads, brandy, wine, Nor were old phials, fill'd with doctor's stuff, With mops unwet, and buckets, wondering when He who, by lucky chance, had wherewithal And smack'd his lips alone; small love was left; Grew still more crabbed, sharp-nosed, and shrill-voiced. Where had been heap'd a mass of pots and mugs For unavailing usage; they snatch'd up, And, scraping, lick'd, with their pounced-parchment tongues, Shyness had written Quiz. The land was dry; Yea, most things washable, and Washing seem'd THE LEG OF MUTTON SCHOOL OF PROSE. The Cook's Oracle.* DOCTOR KITCHENER, we are quite ready to take for granted, is a very hale and praise-worthy person indeed, possessing an excellent appetite and libe'al mind, blending considerable knowedge with strong powers of digestion, and uniting the stomach of a horse to he nobler attributes of man. With ill this, however, we do not hesitate to pronounce him the most unfit person in the world to write a cookery-book. Many of these qualities are certainly perfectly inconsistent with that deliate and refined discrimination of the Dalatal organs which forms the very basis of the philosophy of the stewDan. They may indeed enable the worthy Doctor to appreciate with perect accuracy the merits or defects of ny given dish of beef and cabbage o shine as a connoisseur on Yorkshirepudding-a dilettante on bubble-andqueak-or to descant with much preision on the scientific preparation of oly-poly dumplings, or the mystical mion of goose and apple-sauce. But o all the nobler and more lofty aspiations of the art-to all its finer and nore shadowy perfections to that exquisite and transcendental " gout" which marks the most complicated lishes of a master, we take leave to consider him an utter stranger. It is perhaps to be lamented that a erson whose constitution affords such vidence of abdominal and mental ower, displaying so rare and envible an amalgamation of the spirit nd the flesh, should have been led nprofitably to devote himself to the nly pursuit in which these distincions must contribute to impede his If ever there was a person marked out by nature not to cook, but o devour-not to study and explain he works of creation, but "inwardly o digest them;" one who is "Fruges onsumere natus," and destined uccess. the author of the "Cook's Oracle" is ge Whether such professional aberrations are ever to become commonwhether we are destined to encounter Dr Baillie in a white apron, in the act of skewering a wild-duck, or Sir Henry Halford brandishing a soup-ladle in the kitchen, we shall not venture to predict; but regarding such encroachments with considerable jealousy, we shall certainly discountenance them as much as in us lies, till we find them sanctioned by higher names and weightier authority than those of Dr Kitchener. It is an axiom, founded on experience, that strength in the digestive organs is never found united to delicacy of perception in the palatal ones; or, in other words, that nicety of taste is found to be uniformly connected with delicacy of stomach. The degree of vigilance exercised by the palate in the admission of intruders is constantly regulated by the tone and temper of the stomach. Where the latter is robust and vigorous in the performance of its various functions, the caution of the former is always proportionably Congestoque avidum pinguescere corpore relaxed; and the instant that a man's stomach becomes strong enough to di 66 corpus," -in viscera viscera condi *The Cook's Oracle; containing Receipts for Plain Cookery on the most economical lan for Private Families; also, the art of composing the most simple and most highly nished Broths, Gravies, Soups, Sauces, Store-Sauces, and Flavouring Essences: The uantity of each article is accurately stated by weight and measure: The whole being he result of Actual Experiments instituted in the Kitchen of a Physician. The Third dition, which is almost entirely re-written. London: Printed for Constable and Co. Edinburgh; and Hurst, Robinson, and Co. Cheapside, London. 1821. gest horse-flesh, he will then consider horse-flesh no unpalatable food. Thus it is, that obtuseness of stomach can never be united to vividness of perception in the palate; and as the hands of a watch are found to indicate the existing state of the internal machinery, so is the acuteness of our taste dependant on the internal process of digestion. Of the relative duties of these two portions of our physical or ganization, Dr Kitchener appears to be considerably more ignorant than might have been expected from one professedly writing on the philosophy of cookery. The stomach, to adopt a simile, is a very hospitable gentleman, who is unfashionable enough to live in a sunk story, as his ancestors have always done before him since the memory of man; the palate is the footman, whose duty it is to receive all strangers at the top of the stairs, and announce their rank and quality before they are suffered to descend to the apartments of his master. The latter is occasionally rather irritable and cholerick, and, in such humours, scruples not to kick out his guests, when their company is disagreeable, who rush past the astonished footman at the landing-place, and make their exit with far less ceremony than precipitation. He also uniformly expresses the greatest horror at the very idea of receiving a second visit from the guests he had previously expelled; being, no doubt, in dread of the voluminous apologies which such a circumstance would render necessary, for his former rude and indefensible proceedings. But to return. Whatever tends to moderate or increase the vivacity of our bowels, never fails to produce a corresponding influence on our taste. The viands which the state of our visceral temperament at one time renders most grateful to our palate, become absolutely nauseous at another. Is the revolution of the earth more complete than the change which takes place, and is continually taking place, in the taste and appetites of the same individual, "from morn till noon, from noon till dewy eve-a summer's-day?" In sickness and in health, in youth and age, at sea and on land, in rest and motion, in town and country, at home and abroad, in a state of repletion and one of inanition, in every possible alteration of external circumstances,-nay, in every moment of our lives, our tastes are changing; and though the palate be the compass which ascertains the va riation, yet, like the compass, it only marks the consequences which a more active agent has produced. No man, we imagine, is so ignorant as to pretend that the change which is continually taking place in our appetites is produced by the direct influence of external circumstances on the palate. It is not so. They affect the palatal organs only by an indirect and reflex power; their primary action is on the stomach, and on that alone. As a corollary from these general principles, we take it to be evident, that the vigour and vivacity of bowels, by which the Doctor is distinguished, are quite sufficient to incapacitate him for the task he has undertaken. A good cook must enter the kitchen in a state of body entirely the reverse of that in which a pugilist enters the ring. A month or two of Captain Barclay would ruin him for life, The Knight of the Fives, and he of the Smoke-jack, must proceed on very different principles. The biliary secretions of common men are not sufficient for the cook. In him, bile must be redundant; and if he is troubled with dyspepsia, or afflicted with a constitutional tenesmus, so much the better. Trust not thy din ner, gentle reader, trust not thy dinner in the hands of a muscular and healthy cook. He will poison you with suet and hog's fat-his dishes will be redo lent of garlic and cabbage all manner of abominations will assail your palate and your nose your senses will be come mere avenues of punishment farewell the balmy stew, the mild and savoury fricasee, the delicate, the st mulating ragout! There is death in the pot!Swallow his infernal prepare tions, and you will live the miserable and unwieldy victim of corpulence or, by a more merciful dispensation, die at once under the dietetic infli tions of this culinary Hottentot. The introduction of the fatal horse into walls of Troy produced not half evils which the admission of the dishes of such a cook will occasion in your stomach. In vain will have course to bitters, or court the assiste ance of the brandy-bottle-in will you seek relief from the peristaltie persuaders of Dr Kitchener, for there is no virtue in materia medica no tonic power in rhubarb, gentian, you |