Under this head of leek soups, our author says, "Rabelais, the humorous vicar of Meudon, distinguishes, in his jocose way, two sorts of soups. Soupe de Prime, Prime-soup; and soupe de livriers, soup good for hounds, the meaning of which stands as follows: The first designates that premature delibation of broth, which the young monks in the convent used to steal when they could from the hour of " Prime," a service performed at about seven or eight in the morning, when the porridge-pot, with all its ingredients had been boiling for the space of one or two hours, (the dinner was served at eleven) and when the broth, full of eyes swimming gently on the golden surface, had already obtained an interesting appearance and taste. It was a sort of beef tea, the lusciousness of which was enhanced by the pleasing idea of its being stolen-nitimur in vititum semper. On the contrary, Soupe de levriers, greyhound's soup, means that portion of the porridge which was served to the novices after an ample presumption in favour of the Magnates of the monastery. This was good for nothing, and monks of inferior ranks were ready to throw it to the dogs. The French call rain "soupe de chien." The egg-broth of the miser, who fed his valet with the water in which eggs had been boiled, comes under the denomination of the said " soupe de chien," harrier's broth." From leeks he proceeds to cabbages-of which he says "Cabbages of all species, playing a principal part in the porridge and other dishes, and holding eminent situations among the Dramatis Persona, from the first act to the catastrophe, in the interesting entertainment of a good dinner, deserve to be particularly mentioned. "The Romans are said to have brought into Gallia the use of the green and red ones which they had received from Egypt. But, upon Looking more intimately into the case, it appears that the white bras. sica migrated from the northern region to Italy. Indeed the horticular art of obtaining that round and close form, which distinguishes some species of this useful plant, does not seem to date farther than the age of Charlemagne. The bigness and rotundity of that head gave origin to the name. Cabus from Caput and Cabbage evidently from Cabus, with the Italian augmentative, accio or aggio-cabbaggio. Chrysippus, a famous physician of Cnidos, wrote upon the multifarious qualities of this Olus, not a single chapter, but a large vo lume. Galenus and Matthiolus have been very loud in its praise. Pliny, in reckoning the various kinds of cabbage, gives a long account of its virtues, but says little upon its use in cookery, as a noted plant among the esculent ones. Cato is very lavish in his encomiums upon this cruciferous vegetable; and, with Pythagoras, holds it as a general remedy for all diseases. "The red cabbage stewed in veal broth is accounted, upon the continent, a specific cure against pulmonary complaints, and what is called here consumption. Pistachios and calf's lights are added to it. For this purpose red cabbage is especially cultivated in French kitchen-gardens. This reminds us of an anecdote which passed current at the time we heard it :-A young clergyman, rector of a country parish, was called upon to preach a sermon upon a grand solemnity, at which the bishop of the diocese, who was a cardinal, appeared in the Roman purple, surrounded by his clergy in their white surplices. The preacher performed his task to the approbation of every one. After the ceremony, his eminence, meeting him, seemed to wonder at his not having been abashed when in the presence of a cardinal in the full blaze of his red paraphernelia. The simple and honest clergyman replied: "Yoar eminence will cease to wonder, when you know that I learnt my discourse by heart in my garden, and used to practice declamation before a plot of white cabbages, in the centre of which stood a red one."-A preferment was the reward of this answer. "Were we to attend scrupulously to the Greek adage often quoted and never rightly understood, Δὶς κράμβη θάνατος "Twice cabbage brings death," we might be afraid of using it freely in soups and other dishes; but after hunting most strenuously the sense of this saying through the intricate meanders of the Delphini and variorum notes, and other commentators, concerning the following line of Juvenal, Sat. vii, 154. "Occidit miseros crambe repetila magistros," Our we must confess that we see no harm in it, and would boldly advise the whole fraternity of snips to go on, undauntedly as they do in their daily and furious onset upon this, their most favourite, mess. "The signification of the adage remains still unenucleated. opinion is that, in the numerous Greek schools erected at Rome che first declension of substantives was xgaußn, ns, ; crambe,crambes rambé, as we have here musa, musæ, musæ, a song, of a song, to a ong, as a specimen. The daily repetition of this noun by the hesi tating, stammering, simpering schoolboys, must have been exceedingly tiresome, and enough to kill the disgusted masters-experto credo Roberto. Gifford, in his translation of Juvenal, eludes, or rather misunderstands the sense; for he says: Like hashed cabbage served for each repast, The repetition kills the wretch at last ;' however, Juvenal, who points at the Greek proverb, does not explain it." Innumerable varieties of the soup species are subsequently introduced, amongst which the turtle is not forgotten. Callipash hinc gustum languentem provocat ; indé Potages à la Reine, à l'Ecossaise, à la Xavier, à l'œil de perdrix, &c. &c. &c. all follow in due order, but on these we must not enter. Of all these, beef is, or ought to be, the ground-work-and so no wonder that our author should favour us with a dozen pages all about BEEF. He hints that the ox was worshipped in the proud temples of Memphis, under the name of Apis, solely or chiefly on account of the excellence of the * dishes which are formed at his expense- and exhibits a great deal more learning of the same sort. He also appears to have some feelings of regret, in observing how many animals, not unworthy of sharing in those bovine honours, are altogether excluded, in consequence of the foolish prejudices of John Bull. Young ASSES, he informs us, were served upon the table of Mæcenas himself, when he entertained Augustus and Horace. The Roman epicures, however, certainly delighted, according to the testimony of Pliny, (book 29, chap. 24.) in the flavour of young and well-fattened puppies-which dainty, by the way, still continues to be in vogue among the Chinese and the Esquimaux. Plump and well roasted bats are, at this day, laid on a bed of olives, and served up, to the joy of the Gourmands of the Levant; and Scaliger remarks, that their flavour is sweeter than that of the finest chickens. Frenchmen, we all know, say the same thing of frogs. Hedgehogs were fricasseed in Greece. Hamster rats are fricasseed in Brandenburg; and Laplanders feed on fried squirrels. We ourselves once betted five shillings, that a certain dear friend of ours† would not eat a mouse-pie-and lost. In short, chacun a son gout. It is a sad mistake in the arrangement of British dinuers, that certain of the most precious dishes are invariably introduced at a period when no gastrologer, who does not unite something of the practical powers of the Gourmand with his own theoretical skill, can do them anything like justice. Among these, game of all sorts may be mentioned-and with reverence be it spoken-a roasted goose, although his claim may be dubious to be classed among game. They manage these things better in France. There the goose after his kind, and the partridge after his kind, are sure to make their appearance at a more early stage of the procession--but there the roasted goose, amidst his flood of apple sauce, never appears. The thighs and liver of the goose, however, are learnedly made into pies, and properly truffled, "patés a foies Quere-Whether, had they lived in these days, they would not have been satisfied with cutting up young WHIGs or Tories? He got through the the task with great ease, and offered, when the pie was done, to eat a mouse roasted in the fur with butter, and oat cake-crumbs, for the same sum-but we declined indulging in any more such experiments. gras," are reckoned a most delicate article, well worthy of entering almost at the threshold of the feast. Shocking sto ries are told of the means resorted to by the French gourmets, for the production of that enormous size of liver in which the chief charm of this dish is supposed to consist. But indeed, we need not go so far from home-for we were very well acquainted, not long ago, with a humane gentleman in the west of Scotland, whose kitchen constantly exhibited a shelf of geese, nailed to the wood by the webs of their feet-quite close to the fire. In that situation, there is no doubt they had almost as fair a chance for the liver complaint as the master of the house himself. Spallanzani, as we all know, made a series of experiments to discover how many pins and bullets, &c., a hen could swallow. We think he and our west-country friend ought to have been both of them subjected to some little touches of the LEX TALIONIS, Had Dante known of them, there can be no doubt he would have lodged them together by the side of the main oven of the infernals--the one nailed to a shelf, that his liver might swell-the other devouring corkscrews and metal tooth-picks, ad infinitum. We have no intention of going regularly through the long string of topics embraced by the annotatory plan of our author. Let our readers be satisfied with a few of the crumbs that fall from his table, such as the following. Talking of pheasants, he says, "The beauty of the bird when alive, the flavour and quality of his flesh when properly dressed, are too well known to claim a long description in this note. Gastronomers, who have any sort of aversion to a peculiar taste in game properly kept, had better abstain from this bird-since it is worse than a common fowl, if not waited for till it acquires the fumet it ought to have. Whole republics of maggots have often been found rioting under the wings of pheasants; but being radically dispersed, and the birds properly washed with vinegar, every thing went right, and every guest, unconscious of the culinary ablutions, enjoyed the excellent flavour of the Phasian birds." Of the Tetrax, Tetras, or Cocq de bruyére. "Heath-cock, is the real name of the moor-cock, and the rest of the black game so well known in the hyperborean parts of Great Britain. Several naturalists of easy credulity have believed and propagated as probable, if not indisputable, that the great Tetrao, or Tetras, the monarch of the wood, perched on the branch of a tree, calls to him his wandering hens; and that, after having dropped some mysterious liquid from his beak, he sends them away properly fit to propagate his royal breed. This bird is also called Gor-cock, red or black game. The following lines allude to the fable hinted in the poem : Where smooth, unruffled by the northern blast, Of herrings he remarks, that when fresh, the French always serve them up with melted butter and plenty of mustard in it-a hint worth attending to. He then goes on thus about mustard. "The etymology of mustard ought to be recorded here. In 1382, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, going to march against his revolted neighbours, and Dijon having furnished for that expedition its quantum of 1000 armed men, the duke, in kind acknow. ledgment, granted to the town, among other privileges, the permis sion of bearing his armorial ensigns with this motto, moult me tarde, I long, I wish ardently. In consequence of this mark of princely condescension, the Dijonese municipality ordered the arms and motto to be beautifully sculptured over the principal gate of the city, which was done accordingly. But time, tempus edar, and that inces sant drop of water which causes the destruction of the hardest stone, non vi sed sæpe cudendo, or some particular accident, having obliter ated the middle word me, the remaining ones, moult, tarde, gave oc casion to the name in the following manner. For a long lapse of time, the merchants of Dijon have been, and still are, grest dealers in sénécè, or, sinapi, (mustard seed); and have a method of grinding it with salt, vinegar, and other ingredients, m order to preserve it, and send it to all parts of the world. On their sénévè pots they used to paste a label, ensigned with the Duke of Bargundy's arms and the motto as it accidentally remained then over the gate of the city, mouit-tarde; hence the name which the sinapi composition has preserved to this day It might be observed, that the natura pungency of this little seed, expressed in Latin by multum ardet, and in old French by monite arde, it burns much,' might be taken as the real thema of the word. But it does not appear that the Dijonese were ever scholars enough as to borrow from the tongue of Cicero a denomination for the object of their trade. However, in latter times, an eminent mustard-manufacturer of that place proved himself somewhat acquainted with Latin, since he wrote jersey over his shop door, Mnitum tardat, Dirio rizam; that is, Mt-tarde. Dijonnoise; Dijen-mustard. Pliny pretends that mustard is 23 antidote against venomous mushrooms. B. xix. ch. 8. & 22." Of oysters he says |