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fixed on heaven," is the only sure mode of pleasing all readers. It forms

the genuine hill and dale of style, and when bounded by a modern meadow of margin, bids fair to circulate through ten editions.

And now, reader, prepare yourself for a lecture on carving. "Some people," says our authoress," haggle meat so much as not to be able to help half a dozen persons decently from a large tongue or a surloin of beef; and the dish goes away with the appearance of having been gnawed by dogs." Most dogs that have come under my cognizance would be better pleased to gnaw the meat than the dish; but putting that aside, it must be allowed to be a monstrous thing for the seventh expectant, to be watching for a slice from a surloin which is destined to be wasted on six persons! Our lady, however, must in this instance be considered, as rather hypercritical, few persons being so uninitiated in the mysteries of the blade, as to be unable to carve a tongue or a surloin: But to be placed opposite a pig, a goose, or a hare, and to possess no more skill in the art than the executioner of the duke of Monmouth, is indeed one of the miseries of human life. I most sincerely wish I could transplant these dainties to the pages of this Review; but, since that cannot be, let me at least do all I can, by extracting the rules for dissecting them.

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Sucking Pig-The cook usually decorates the body before it is sent to table, and garnishes the dish with the jaws and ears. [If she do not, she deserves to lose her own ears.] "The first thing is to separate a shoulder from the carcase on one side, and then the leg according to the directions given by the dotted line a, b, c. The ribs are then to be divided into about two helpings, and an ear or a jaw presented with them, and plenty of sauce. The joints may either be divided into two each, or pieces may be cut from them. The ribs are reckoned the finest part, but some people prefer the neck-end between the shoulders." [Here is a difference of opinion between all people and some people, which is left to the arbitration of other people.]

"Goose.-Cut off the apron in the cir cular line a, b, c, in the figure opposite glass of Port wine and a large tea-spoonthe last page, and pour into the body a

ful of mustard, first mixed at the sideboard. Turn the neck of the goose towards you, and cut the whole breast in long slices from one wing to another; but only remove them as you help each person, unless the company is so large as to require the legs likewise." [And if the eaters are so many, wo betide the goose; there will be nothing left of it for the next day.] "This way gives more prime bits than by making wings. Take off the leg by putting the fork into the small end of the bone, pressing it to the body, and having passed the knife at d, turn the leg back, and, if a young bird, it will easily separate." [Let our army and navy surgeons take notice that this instruction is not meant for them.] "To take off the wing, put your fork into the small end of the pinion, and press it close to the body; then put in the knife at d and divide the joint, taking it down in the direction d, e. Nothing but practice will enable people to hit the joint exactly wing of one side are done, go on to the at the first trial.* When the leg and other; but it is not often necessary to cut up the whole goose, unless the company be very large. There are two sidebones by the wing, which may be cut off, as likewise the back and lower sidebones: but the best pieces are the breast and the thighs after being divided from the drumsticks."

"Hare. The best way of cutting it up, is to put the point of the knife under the shoulder at a, in the figure opposite the next page, and so cut all the way down to the rump on one side of the backbone, in the line a, b. Do the same on the other side, so that the whole hare will be divided into three parts. Cut the back part into four, which, with the legs, is the part most esteemed. The shoulders must be cut off in a circular line, as c, d, a; lay the pieces neatly on the dish as you cut them, and then help the company, giving some pudding and gravy to every person. This way can only be

* The clear meaning of this remark is,. that, if you are perfected by practice, you will hit the joint exactly at the first trial, though you never tried before.

†The impartiality of this hospitable lady, in giving pudding to every person, whether they like it or like it not, is truly amiable, and of a piece with that species of boarding-school benevolence which pla

practised when the hare is young: if old, don't divide it down, which will require a strong arm" [a sly hint at the weakness of her readers] "but put the knife between the leg and back, and give it a little turn inwards at the joint, which you must endeavour to hit and not to break by force. When both legs are taken off, there is a fine collop on each side the back" [we all love a slice from poor puss;-This is indeed the hare and many friends] "then divide the back into as many pieces as you please, and take off the shoulders, which are by many preferred, and are called the sportsman's pieces. When every one is helped, cut off the head" [and take it to yourself] "put your knife between the upper and lower jaw, and divide them, which will enable you to lay the upper flat on your plate, then put the point of the knife into the centre, and cut the head in two. The ears and brains may be helped then to those who like them."

By the way, the same individual has seldom a penchant for both. Our noble patronizers of the Italian opera have nice ears and no brains, and many a sinister limb of the law has a plentiful stock of brains and no ears. Here is a body of rules, scientifically laid down, like the figure of a country dance, by right and left, leading out sides, and galloping down the middle, by a study of which the enlightened reader, when a goose or hare is before him,

May CARVE it like a dish fit for the gods, Not hew it like a carcase for the hounds.

It is to be feared, however, that this, to many readers, is all Algebra, without the aid of the dotted engravings, which, by the way, are so badly executed, that it may be safely said, never were such good dinners served up on such indifferent plates. those, however, who do not comprehend them, the utility of the above extracts is too obvious to render any apology necessary; and would to pro

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ces pudding as a grace before meat, and obliges the young student to wade through a slough of rice or suet, before he can revel in the joys of beef or mut

jon.

A hint from Horace-viz.

Sapiens sectabitur armos. By which we learn that SAPIENS is Latin for a sportsman.

priety that certain ladies and gentlemen would take their degrees in this culinary college ere they pretend to carve for themselves! "Can none remember, yes I know all must," some one of his acquaintance whose zeal to do the honours of the table is visit the coast of Africa, and who is as intense as that of a missionary to about as well skilled in the science he professes to teach? Give such a man the hundred hands of Briareus, and he would gladly dissect a whole city feast at a single sitting. With a generosity peculiar to himself, he dispenses the gravy over the faces and waistcoats of his fellow guests, leaving the poor goose or duck as dry as a Scotch metaphysical essay. When a man of this stamp thrusts his fork into the breast of a woodcock, the company present express as much alarm as if the bird were alive." Let no such man be trusted." What a fine subject for a didactick poem is carving! What is Mr. Godwin about? It is well known he addresses his writs to the late sheriff of

London, who, upon such an occasion, would doubtless usher the bantling to light. It is true the worthy knight eats no meat himself, since he eat up the heifer; but is that a reason why he should be unmindful of those that do?

But as humanity is the brightest jewel in a lady's tiara, it grieves me to be obliged to reprehend, in the most unqualified terms, the following receipt to make hare soup-page 104: "Take an old hare that is good for nothing else, cut it into pieces," &c. Fie, madam! are these your fine feelings? Sterne, who wept over a dead jackass, like any sandman, would never have forgiven you. Mr. Southey, mounted on old Poulter's mare, will vilipend you through a whole Thalabia. Is this your respect for age? Suppose some giant of the Monk Lewis breed, having a penchant for human flesh, were to seize you in his paws, and utter this. culinary dictum: "Take an old wp

man that is good for nothing else, cut her into pieces," &c. Gentle lady, would you like to be served so yourself?

"Order is heaven's first law," quoth the poet of reason; and as good eating is a heaven on earth to so many respectable natives of London, it can excite no surprise that our dictatrix from the pantry has prefixed to her work an ample and well arranged table of contents, dividing her subject into thirteen parts, embracing every dainty that can tickle the human palate. She commences with the scaly tenants of the flood, and ends with receipts to prevent hay from firing, to wash old deeds, to preserve a head of hair, and to dye gloves to look like York tan or Limerick. What an excursive fancy are some ladies blessed with! A limb of the law might call the latter part of this division travelling out of the record, but surely without due consideration.-Tempus EDAX rerum, is a precept, old as the hills. Now as it is well known that the old gentleman will now and then nibble a lady's glove," then her flowing hair," or gnaw the title deeds of her husband's estate, why should not his food be treated of as well as ours? Nor let any carping critick condemn her dissertation on home-brewery and sauces as too prolix. The evils that spring from inattention to these articles are more numerous than the woes that sprang from the wrath of the son of Peleus. I will not repeat the well known catastrophe at Salthill; death, in that case, was a welcome visiter to snatch eight unfortunate gentlemen from the calamity of an illcooked repast. But I will put it to the recollection of the majority of my readers, whether they are not in the habit of dining with some individual, whom nature seems to have manufactured without a palate. If you ask the footman of such an unhappy being for bread, you receive something possessing the consistence of a stone. His turbot has all the

dignity of age, his Port wine all the fire of youth. With an anxious forefinger and a disappointed thumb, you turn up his fish-cruets one by one, and find that they resemble the pitchers of the Belides. His champagne is a copartnership of tar-water and treacle, and his lobster-sauce is so alarmingly congealed as to be fitter for Salmon's wax-work than for salmon! These are the trials of human fortitude! Talk of Job scolded by his wife, or Cato pent up in Utica -psha! How different the taste and establishment of the renowned Decius! He is an assiduous frequenter of the Tabernacle, where he ponders on the joys to come-when the dinner hour arrives. His thoughts are revolving, not on the new birth, but on the new spit, which kindly roasts his venison without wounding it. If the afternoon service happen to extend beyond the usual period, then may Decius be seen to issue from his pew, like the lioness from her den. Not having the fear of repletion before his eyes, but moved and instigated by an overroasted haunch, he darts through the aisle, and knocks down the intervening babes of grace like so many piping ninepins.

Such is the laudable zeal of a man whose ruling passion floats in a tureen of mock turtle, and yet, so unsatisfactory are all sublunary enjoyments, it may sometimes be doubted whether the rearing of such costly pyramids of food be worth the founder's trouble. Goldsmith somewhere expresses a strong objection to two thousand pounds a year, because they will not procure a man two appetites; and another starveling son of the muses, in his fable of the Court of Death, seems to insinuate, that intemperance may, in time, injure the constitution. Certain it is, that three deadly foes to the disciple of Epicurus, entitled Plethora, Apoplexy, and bilious Gout, are often found to lie perdu beneath a masked battery of French paste, and, crossing the course of the voluptuary, like the weird sis

ters in the path of the benighted Thane, so annoy him, even when seated on that throne of human felicity, a tavern-chair, as to make it a moot point whether it was worth his while to wade through the blood of so many animals to attain it.

Mark what Alixis, a Greek poet says:

Oh, that Nature

Might quit us of this overbearing burthen,

This tyrant god, the belly! Take that

from us,

With all its bestial appetites, and man, Exonerated man, shall be all soul.

A truce, however, to these unpalatable reflections, and let us revert to more agreeable topicks. The due arrangement of a dinner table is not so easy a matter as some folks imagine. Every one recollects the anecdote of the Gray's-Inn Student, who entertained his guests, consisting of two pining old maids and a bilious nabob, with boiled tripe at top, boiled tripe at bottom, and a round of beef, garnished with parsnips, in the centre. Any man possessed of mo

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ney, may give a dinner, but, to give a proper one, requires both taste and fancy; and as those two ingredients are not always discernible in the tout ensemble of a son of Plutus, our authoress has kindly supplied their place, by inventing a scale of dinners suited to all pockets; loading the stomachs of her readers, as Lock. it clogged the ankles of his custom. ers, with fetters of all prices, from one guinea to ten. An abridgment of this part of the work could only have the effect of lopping off its merits; I shall content myself, therefore, with touching the two extremes; extracting, in the first place, that sort of plain, family dinner which a man produces when he means to treat you like a friend, though, alas! it has more the appearance of treating you like an enemy; and, in the next place, I shall lay before my readers a collection of good things, which might compose a lord mayor's feast, worthy to be given by the late to the present incumbent.

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A very indifferent repast, at all events; but take heed to the roasting of your pork, for Tom Browne, of facetious memory, made a dinner for the devil, in which he gave him undone-pork for his top dish.

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It is now time to close the present thing but the extreme importance of article, for the length of which, no- the subject can atone. With a trem

bling pen, I have ventured to touch upon the science of luxurious eating, of which, it must be confessed, my knowledge is derived rather from theory than practice, and in which, therefore, it is highly probable I have committed some mistakes. Shades of Apicius, Darteneuf, and Quin, forgive me if I have erred! Our jour ney, gentle reader, has been through a delightful country, recalling to our recollection the juvenile tale of Miranda, or the Royal Ram; inasmuch as we are credibly informed, that the air within the blissful domains of that woolly potentate, was darkened with showers of tarts and cheesecakes. Let me entreat thee to repair, with out loss of time, to the shop of Mr. John Murray, of Fleet Street, where,

for seven shillings and sixpence, thou mayest purchase the work of which I have furnished thee with a sort of hashed analysis. Then, if thou art a man of taste, thou wilt order a dainty repast, after the fashion of one of those enumerated within the precincts of pages 312 and 320; and then, when thy envious covers are snatched off by a skilful domestick, and a steam ascends which might gratify the nose of Jove himself, and make him lean from Olympus to smell, I hope thou wilt, as in duty bound, exclaim in the words of the pious king Cymbeline : And let the crooked smoke climb to their Laud we the gods,

nostrils

From our blest altars.

FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

Woman; or, Ida of Athens.* By Miss Owenson, author of "The Wild Irish Girl," "The Novice of St. Dominick," &c. 4 vols. 12mo. London, 1809.-Philadelphia, republished by Bradford and Inskeep, 2 vols. 12mo. 1809.

"BACHANTES, animated with Orphean fury, slinging their serpents in the air, striking their cymbals, and uttering dithyrambicks, appeared to surround him on every side." p. 5.

"That modesty which is of soul, seemed to diffuse itself over a form, whose exquisite symmetry was at once betrayed and concealed by the apparent tissue of woven air, which fell like a vapour round her." p. 23.

"Like Aurora, the extremities of her delicate limbs were rosed with flowing hues, and her little foot, as it pressed its naked beauty on a scarlet cushion, resembled that of a youthful Thetis from its blushing tints, or that of a fugitive

Atalanta from its height," &c. &c. p. 53. After repeated attempts to comprehend the meaning of these, and a hundred similar conundrums, in the compass of half as many pages, we gave them up in despair; and were carelessly turning the leaves of the volume backward and forward, when the following passage, in a short note "to the Reader," caught

For another review of this work, taken from the Monthly Review, and giving a less unfavourable account of it, see vol 1. of the Select Reviews, p. 394.

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our eye. My little works have been always printed from illegible manuscripts in one country, while their author was resident in another." p. vi. We have been accustomed to overlook these introductory gossipings: in future, however, we shall be more circumspect; since it is evident, that if we had read straight for. ward from the title page, we should have escaped a very severe headach.

The matter seems now sufficiently clear. The printer having to produce four volumes from a manu

script, of which he could not read a word, performed his task to the best of his power; and fabricated the requisite number of lines, by shaking the types out of the boxes at a venture. The work must, therefore, be considered as a kind of overgrown amphigouri, a heterogeneous combination of events, which, pretending to no meaning, may be innocently permitted to surprise for a moment, and then dropt for ever.

If, however, which is possible, the author, like Caliban (we beg Miss

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