further change; but is it not rather un.uckily deprived, at the same time, of its saccharine principle-in short, of all nutritive property? For our own parts, we adhere to the old orthodox bread with the gin in it.'

But enough for the present of bread.-In France, most substances are exposed, through the medium of oil or butter, to a temperature of at least 600° Fahrenheit, by the operation of frying, or some analogous process. They are then introduced into a macerating vessel with a little water, and kept for several hours at a temperature far below the boiling point (212°), not perhaps higher than 180°; and by these united processes, properly conducted, the most refractory articles, whether of animal or vegetable origin, are reduced more or less to the state of pulp, and admirably adapted for the further action of the stomach.* In the common cookery of this country, on the contrary, articles are usually put at once into a large quantity of water, and submitted, without care or attention, to the boiling temperature: the consequence is, that most animal substances, when taken out, are harder and more indigestible than in the natural state; for it is well known that albuminous substances (as, for example, the white of an egg) become the harder the longer they are boiled. These observations are often of the utmost importance in a medical point of view. When the powers of the stomach are weak, a hard and crude English diet (such, for example, as half-raw beef-steaks, &c., so frequently recommended) is sure to produce much discomfort by promoting acidity; while the very same articles, well cooked upon French principles, or rather the principles of common sense, can be taken with impunity, and easily assimilated, by the same individual. It has been remarked before, on the authority of one of our ablest chemical physicians, that our principal alimentary matters may be reduced to three classes, of which sugar, butter, and white of egg, are the representatives. Now, it is a curious circumstance that milk, the only article absolutely prepared and intended by nature as an aliment, is a compound of all the three classes; and almost

Singular as it may be thought, it is not yet determined what is the exact purpose of rumination; but looking at the deficiency in the cutting-teeth of such animals as chew the cud, and reflecting upon the fact that this peculiar function is not established till after the young animal has ceased to be nourished by the milk of its mother, we may safely conclude that it is intended in some essential way to assist the process of digestion. An ox, for instance, having filled himself with crude vegetable matter, is seen quietly to lie down, and deliberately to begin to cook his meal, which he has providently taken care to secure beforehand in his large internal store-house or larder, technically called the paunch, or venter magnus. The stomachs of luminants with horns are somewhat differently constructed from those of animals of the same class, such as the camel, dromedary, and lama, which have a beautiful and curious mechanism, that fits them to live in the sandy deserts where the supplies of water are very precarious. It is said that hares and rabbits ruminate, but it must be only when they eat particular kinds of vegetables; certainly when they are fed upon meal this remarkable action is not perceptible,

all

all the gramineous and herbaceous matters employed as food by the lower animals contain at least two, if not all the three. The same is true of animal aliments, which consist at least of albumen and oil. In short, it is perhaps impossible to name a substance employed by the more perfect animals as food, that does not essentially constitute a natural compound of at least two, if not all three, of these great principles of alimentary matter.

Skin, it may be mentioned, is composed almost entirely of animal jelly, a substance nearly allied in its properties to albumen, and called by chemists gelatine, of which the purest example is isinglass. With the nutritive properties of this we are all familiar in a very common culinary product, viz., blanc-mange. Now, by the process of tanning, skin attracts the tan of the liquor in which it is immersed, and forms a compound insoluble either in cold or boiling water, and not liable to putrefaction. The well-known substance, leather, is this compound, and though rather unsavoury and somewhat dif ficult of digestion, has on an emergency been employed as an article of food. Sir John Franklin, in the account he has given us of his journey to the shores of the Polar Sea, when describing the extremities of hunger and privation of every kind to which he was exposed, says, on one occasion,

'Previous to setting out, the whole party ate the remains of their old shoes and whatever scraps of leather they had, to strengthen their stomachs for the fatigue of the day's journey.'-vol. iv. p. 58. On another occasion the Captain

'found some of his party halting among some willows, where they had picked up some pieces of skin and a few bones of deer that had been devoured by the wolves last spring. They had rendered the bones friable by burning, and eaten them as well as the skin, and several of them had added their old shoes to the repast.'-vol. iv. p. 33.*

Some idea may be formed of the hardships endured by these brave men, from the story of their disappointment and grief when they reached Fort Enterprise and found all perfectly desolateno deposit of provisions-no trace of the Indians.

* But the human stomach can digest harder substances than mere skin and bone, as appears from a paper published in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. xii. part 1, 1822, by the late Dr. Marcet. In this memoir he relates the history of an English sailor, who, in imitation of a conjuror whose tricks he had just witnessed, and in a drunken frolic, swallowed several clasp-knives, and, ten years afterwards, died in Guy's hospital. Several most skilful surgeons examined his bodywith great interest and attention: to the astonishment of all, the blades of many knives were found in his interior, some of them remarkably corroded and prodigiously reduced in size, while others were comparatively in a state of tolerable preservation.' The knives are still to be seen in the museum attached to the Hospital.

• When

When I arose,' writes Sir John, on the following morning, my body and limbs were so swollen, that I was unable to walk more than a few yards. My companions, four in number, went to collect bones (the relics of deer that had been thrown away during our former residence) and some tripe de roche, which supplied us with two meals. The bones were quite acrid, and the soup extracted from them excoriated the mouth if taken alone, but it was somewhat milder when boiled with tripe de roche.'

A regimen consisting of tripe de roche (a lichen of the genus gyrophora), dry bones, and old shoes, is, to be sure, an instance of a mixed animal and vegetable diet, though, it must be granted, not of the most inviting description. But it is in the artificial food of man that we see this great principle of mixture most strongly exemplified. Dissatisfied with the productions spontaneously furnished by nature, he culls from every source, and forms, in every possible manner, and under every disguise, the same great alimentary compound. This, after all his baking, roasting, stewing, &c.-how much soever he may be disinclined to believe it, is the sole end and object of his exertions. Even in the utmost refinement of his luxury the same great principle is attended to; and his sugar and flour, his eggs and butter, in all their various forms and combinations, are nothing more nor less than disguised imitations of the simple elementary prototype, milk.* It follows, therefore, that to say of anything, in the old homely way, that it is as good as mother's milk,' is in fact the highest praise we can bestow; nor is the preference here given to mother's milk an accidental or indifferent circumstance-for all chemists know that human milk is more nutritious and more digestible than any other, inasmuch as it contains very little curd, but abounds in cream. Here we have another instance of the good sense and sound observation couched in our old proverbial expressions.

6

Before we dismiss entirely this summary view of human diet, we should observe that, of the alimentary matters employed by man, two of them-viz., the oleaginous and albuminous—are animal products, or parts of other animals; and hence may be supposed capable of being at once applied to the purposes of the animal economy without undergoing any essential change. With the saccharine class, derived principally from the vegetable kingdom, the case is different; and before this can be converted either into the oleaginous or the albuminous principles, it must undergo some essential change or changes in its composition. But it has been found, that whatever be the nature of the food of man, the general composition of the chyle, or milky fluid, into which it is all resolved before its absorption into the system, is the same.

*Prout's Galstonian Lectures, delivered at the College of Physicians, 1831.

We

We all know, by our own sensations, how great an influence the stomach exercises over our daily happiness. Mrs. Hannah More says, in her quaint way, There are only two bad things in this world-sin and bile.' When in a perfectly healthy condition, everything goes on well-all is couleur de rose; on the contrary, our doctors tell us that the horrors of hypochondriasis are mainly owing to dyspepsia, or indigestion. That this is true we have no doubt, though we are not yet fully disposed to adopt the French maxim- mauvais cœur, bon estomac'-as comprehending the requisites of physical enjoyment.

Our lively neighbours, however, possess such indisputable claims to be our masters in the art of cookery, that everything coming from them which relates in any way to the table is entitled to be received with attention and acknowledged with gratitude. Les lois, règles, applications et exemples de l'art de bien vivre,' laid down with great exactness in the Code Gourmand,' named at the head of this paper, have afforded us some amusement; and we think few of our readers could help smiling at the solemn trifling of the confirmed epicure who has here recorded the results of his gastronomical experience. It is paying him but a poor compliment, that he is worth a hundred Dr. Kitcheners.

The ceremonies to be observed, from the first sending out of an invitation to the service of the last remove of an entertainment, are described with rigorous formality :

6 CHAP. I. TITRE PREMIER.

'Art. 3.-La date de l'invitation se mesure d'après l'importance du repas. Pour plus de sûreté et de régularité, elle ne peut avoir à courir moins de quatre jours, ni plus de trente.

Art. 4.-Quand le dîner doit être orné d'une pièce notable, on l'indique par un post-scriptum; on écrit, "Il y aura une carpe du Rhin," comme il y aura un violon.'

Art. 5.-Le vaste surtout chargé de fleurs est à jamais proscrit de la table d'un vrai gourmand; valut il mille écus, il faut lui préférer le modeste hors-d'œuvre dont il envahit la place.'

CHAP. II. TITRE SECOND.

'Art. 1.-Un convive qui sait son monde n'entamera jamais une conversation avant la fin du premier service; jusque-là le dîner est une affaire sérieuse, dont il serait imprudent de distraire l'assemblée.' Art. 2.-Toute phrase commencée doit être suspendue à l'arrivée d'une dinde aux truffles.

'Art. 3.-Un convive ne doit être que poli pendant le premier service; il est tenu d'être galant au second; il peut être tendre au dessert. Jusqu'au champagne'

But the Convive is getting too lively for our English notionsso we must turn a new leaf, and introduce the reader to more sober company. ART.

- ART. VI.-Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More. By William Roberts, Esq. 4 vols. London,

1834.

HAD AD it been possible for any literator, with Mrs. Hannah More's correspondence at his command, to produce an uninteresting work under the title which we have transcribed, we are obliged to confess our belief that the task must have been accomplished by Mr. Roberts. The regard with which Mrs. More honoured him would of itself be a sufficient pledge for the purity of his intentions; and we willingly acknowledge that, in his own part of this bulky book, he has occasionally expressed amiable feelings. But the selection of him for this undertaking appears, on the whole, to have been about as unfortunate as any that could have been thought of. He writes with the facility of a practised turner of periods, but with the confusion and verbosity of one whose brain has been less exercised than his hand. He sees, and therefore describes, few things clearly; nor has he any notion what the things are concerning the history, manners, and deportment of such a person as Hannah More, that her biographer ought to have made it his business to describe. His method of compiling and arranging is so clumsy, that if any one can extract from this book a distinct notion even of the principal events and dates in her life, he must have bestowed more attention on the materials of which it is composed than the editor himself has thought fit to do. If year and month be not written at the top of the sheet, Mr. Roberts never even seems to think of trying to make out the date from the contents; thus, for example, he states it as doubtful whether Hannah's first visit to London was in 1773 or 1774, though a letter printed in vol. i. p. 48, distinctly settles the point in favour of the latter year; while he gives another dateless letter at p. 36, as the first she wrote from London, though that letter is full of the praises of the Journey to the Hebrides, which was not published until January, 1775. We shall not waste space in exposing more of his blunders of this class, though the book swarms with them. A more serious and equally pervading mischief is, that Mr. Roberts takes part with nothing but the peculiar views and prejudices of the religious sect, if it may be so called, to which Mrs. Hannah More, in the later years of her life, lent the distinction of her too exclusive favour. All the earlier, brighter, and we take leave to say by no means the least honourable pages of her history, have accordingly but little interest in his eyes; he seems to be throughout in the vein of apologising for her ever having been on terms of intimacy with anybody out of his own little pale; forgetting that her place within that circle

was,