off the aforesaid white bedgown, and display their ARMS -not covered like those of the aforesaid servant girl, with unblushing redness; but with 'gay green.' where the sight dwells

With growing strength, and ever new delight.' Another season approaches, and we now see what nature has been about for so long a period. She has been getting ready the apples for the pie. Ripe, rosycheeked apples, as ready to drop into the arms of their lover, as a boarding-school girl from a two-story window.

her

While

Nature does not, however, confine herself to the cultivation of one ingredient, however necessary, labours serve to second, too, some other use." she has been preparing the apples for the pie, she has not neglected the flour for the paste. Winter, spring, and summer, have succeeded each other for its formation; until at length, autumn, crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,' brings all their labours to perfection. While the reaping, the threshing, and the grinding of the wheat, are going on at home, Africa sends her tawny sons to raise the sugar, our merchantmen are busily employed in bringing it home, and our noblest ships are pursuing their foamy track' through the Indian ocean, to procure the cloves. The apples and the flour are the productions of Europe; the cloves the offspring of Asia; the sugar raised by the labour of Africa from the soil of America. How wonderful! The four quarters of the great globe itself' must unite their labours to form an apple-pie! How gratifying to the philanthropist must be the consideration that, while he is enjoying the closest possible connexion with some charming apple-pie, he is, at the same time, giving employment to thousands of his fellow-creatures. If he who promotes the industry of a few individuals does well,-how great a benefactor of the human race is the devourer of an apple-pie !!!

Having considered the materials of an apple-pie, the next topic, naturally, is the manner in which those materials are compounded. Our grandmothers gave

this subject a proper degree of attention, and studied, as an art, the composition of pies. But, alas!' ' tempora mutantur,' in plain English, the times are sadly changed. Many a young lady, now-a-days, can caricature nature in her drawings, annoy us with her piano, or glide listlessly through a quadrille, who neglects the study of the pie, and, what is still worse, wishes to pass for a person of taste. Wonderful perversion of terms, when even the very phrase she employs demonstrates the importance of that sense to which the mouth is subservient, and which the pie is formed to gratify! To such I speak not. Falstaff says, 'had I a thousand sons, I would teach them to abjure all other potations, and addict themselves to sack.' Had I a thousand daughters I would teach them to abjure all such frivolities, and addict themselves to pie. It is a study peculiarly becoming to young females-'Sweets to the sweet.'-Oh! that the gentle sex may benefit by these lucubrations.

As the eye passes instantaneous judgment on every object, the appearance of the pie is of no small importance. Some are perfectly plain in their covering; others embellished with a frost-work, which surpasses, in attraction, the beauty of a hoar frost on the windows of a bedchamber. The former reminds me of some charining girl in a morning undress : the latter of the same lady armed for ball-room conquest. The one seems to disregard admiration; the other to demand universal homage as her right. Each have their admirers, and I shall be generous enough to allow them to retain their respective merits. I pass on 'to metal more attractive.' How I do reverence an apple-pie! With what dignity it advances to the post of honour at the supper table! How conscious it seems of its own importance, remaining apart from the common tribe of puffs and pastry! It has been said, if women be but young and fair, they have the gift to know it.' Now the apple-pie may well say with Shylock, if we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that also;' hence the undisturbed serenity with which it bears the glances of a longing circle of admirers. How different from the trembling

bashfulness of the jelly! How like to some reigning star in the dress circle of a theatre! But alas!

All's that's fair must fade,
The fairest still the fleetest;
All that's sweet was made

But to be lost when sweetest.'

The moment in which its charms are most attractive is the very moment in which they are destroyed for ever. Frailty! thy name is pie.'

But

Hence loathed melancholy.'

Far different are the ideas of him who, armed with a knife and fork, and supported by a massive silver spoon, advances to the attack: what delight sparkles in his eyes! what animation beams on his countenance! He applies the point of the knife to the paste,-it resists his entrance-his ardour encreases-his strength is applied-and his purpose is effected. Thus, in my youthful days, I have seen a blooming milkmaid resist a kiss at first, to enhance the value of the dozen she gave afterwards. But suppose a puncture made; now is the time for a well-bred man to evince his politeness. Let him not, as Hotspur says, 'come cranking in and cut me here a huge half-moon, a monstrous canile out.' No, let him direct the knife from the point of incision, which should be the centre of the paste, towards his right shoulder, and urge it forward until it encounters the dish. Then let him return to the same place, and aim the next cut towards his left shoulder, taking care that those two cuts are of equal length, or, as a mathematician would express it, that they form the two sides of an isosceles triangle. Let him now place the knife at one of the angles of the base, and draw it horizon. tally towards the opposite angle: remove the triangle thus formed. All is dark within. No light, but rather darkness visible.' Let the carver raise the cup, and all is overflowed with a most delicious liquid. If the pie be hot, its breath is balm,' and its ocean spreads,' not over' coral rocks and amber beds,' but over sweets, to which the nectar of the Gods was but as wormwood. Their's was a fiction, but this is reality.' Its fragrance

is, however, too blissful to last; 'Tis odour fled as soon as shed.' Never can I forget the delicious sensations my first-carved-pie produced. Its perfume is still fresh in my imagination, Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot on memory's waste.'

Let no person envy the carver. Look at him one moment after the first spoonful of apples is removed; examine him narrowly, and you will perceive, amid the affected hilarity with which he does the honours' of the table, that his apparently hospitable enquiries are merely 'lip-honour-breath which the poor wretch would fain deny, but dare not.' Read the expression of his eyes, and observe the tears on his lips, and you will be convinced there is some perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart.' Why does his joy vanish, like 'morning's winged dream? Why does he so soon become, like patience on a monument, smiling at grief?' The stomach becomes, at that moment, the seat of thought; he yearns towards the dainties he is obliged to distribute, and discontent sits heavy on his heart.'

It is said, 'where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise,' and none will confess themselves so ignorant as not to know how to eat an apple-pie: yet, by how few is the proper method understood! Observe the child-he loads the apples with sugar, shovels them, with every possible exertion, into his mouth, and then attacks the paste. Men are but children of a larger gtowth,' The pie should be made, as all in my house are, so as not to require at table any addition of sugar. Let some rich cream be poured over the quantity on the plate; do not hash it altogether into one heterogenous mass, yet take care, at the same time, that every spoonful contains apples, syrup, cream, and paste. By thus judiciously intermixing the several ingredients, you will increase, wonderfully, your own enjoyment, and give, to the uninitiated, the best proof of your refinement. As the cream may vie in colour with the fair necks of many who encircle it, and the fragrance of the pie, emulate their sweet breathings, I hope all my young lovely friends will treasure up these instructions, and place

them in their bosom's core;' yea, in their heart of hearts.'

The love which I bear to pies is no sudden whim— no transient affection; it was planted with my childhood, it grew with my growth, and my constancy may show that

The heart that has truly loved never forgets.' Yet this passion caused the greatest misfortune my schoolboy recollections display. My grand-papa gave me a pie; a diminutive pie indeed; but then it was the first I could call mine. I was enchanted with its beauties, and, when I returned to my boarding-school, placed it on the highest shelf of my cupboard, with the same care that might be lavished on an idol. I thought of it going to bed; I dreamt of it during the night; my fancy presented it in a thousand alluring forms; I regaled my eyes with it the moment I awoke, That very evening I resolved to enjoy it. My imagination feasted on it during the tedious hours of school. At length the bell rung, and I flew on wings of rapture to my hidden treasure. How shall I describe the horror which froze my 'young blood.' The pie was gone! I was struck powerless; then became like Niobe, all tears.' I was not apt to give way to misfortune: my top was stolen, I bore the loss with patience; my ball was lost, and I repined not; my marbles disappeared, and I was unmoved; But there, where I had treasured up my heart,' I could not but remember that such things were and are most dear to me.'

As the lover is unwilling to cease the praises of his mistress, but dwells both on the pleasures and the sorrows she has excited; so I still love to linger upon thoughts of thee, oh pie! You ravish, with delight, the smell, the touch, the taste, and the sight, and even the work of thy destruction causes sounds which are gratifying to the ear of taste! What other object can delight the five senses at the one moment? can please the child and the man, the clown and the sage? But the dinner-bell rings, and I am to have an apple-pie at dinner.

P.