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Recent and Proposed American Publications
Recent and Proposed British Publications.

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LITERARY INTELLIGENCR.

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SELECT REVIEWS.

FOR JULY, 1809.

FROM THE LONDON REVIEW.

A new System of Domestick Cookery, formed upon Principles of Economy, and adapted to the use of private Families. By a lady. A new Edition, corrected. London, printed for John Murray, Fleet Street; J. Harding, St. James's Street; and A. Constable and Co. Edinburgh. 7s. 6d. Reviewed by Mr. J. Smith.

THE three booksellers to whom the world is indebted for this ingenious Treatise on the Art of Eating and Drinking, could not have been more happily marshalled by a king at arms, than they are in the titlepage of this work. Mr. John Murray lives within the city walls, and is, upon that account, positively the best judge of cookery. Mr. J. Harding, of a more courtly residence, may comparatively possess some knowledge of the subject; but Messrs. A. Constable and Co. of Edinburgh, must be pronounced, by all impartial judges, superlatively unfit to give evidence in the cause. A work which treats of oyster patties, green peas, ratafea cream, and London syllabub, must be as much a "sealed book" to our Scottish neighbours, as that northern luminary, Allan Ramsay, is to us darkling natives of the south. The only effect which it can produce in the shop window of the aforesaid A. Constable and Co. is to quicken their countrymen in their journey south ward (like the hay before the horse's nose in Ireland) and thus to overcome that bashful repugnance to visiting England which has ever been the characteristick of a North Briton. But, as a striking title is half the bat

VOL. II.

tle, ought not our authoress, in policy, to have entitled her book: "The Belly and the Members," and dedicated it to our representatives in parliament ?

on.

This would have established her fame in a moment, and consigned old Menenius Agrippa's fable of that name to merited obliviThe great object of the great mass of mankind, docti indoctique, is to eat. From the savage of Terra del Fuego, whose food is worms extracted from decayed wood, to the peripatetick of Bond Street, who, having performed the duties of the morning, regales on turtle and iced champagne; and, while he picks his teeth, eyes with disdain the ignoble herd through the green lattices of Steevens's Hotel, it may be stated, as an indisputable fact, that man is a cooking animal, and increases in civilisation in proportion to the beauty and variety of the produce of his saucepans. The degeneracy of the Jew may, upon this principle, be fairly ascribed to the trainoil that meanders through his viands. The debased condition of the negro may safely be imputed to the yams and cassava which he dignifies with the name of dinner; and what political efforts can this country ever expect

A

from the Dutch, when we reflect that they jumble bacon and buttermilk in the same dish, and feed upon cheeses, which can only be compared to cannon-balls impregnated with salt? Homer's poetical proser, Old Nestor, considered man a cooking animal; so thought the renowned James Boswell, that twinkling star in the great belt of the Saturnine Moralist; and the observation enabled Mr. Burke to account for the old proverb -There's reason in roasting of eggs. With this great truth in view, how much obliged ought the publick to feel to a lady who, instead of inditing sonnets to the moon and feeding the mind of her readers through the medium of the Minerva press, has preferred the more laudable pursuit of catering for the stomach, and has produced a work, at which the Hannah Glasses and the Farleys may hide their diminished larders. Half an author's merit arises from the choice of his subject. A new system of religion was out of the question; no sober man now thinks of going any where except to the Tabernacle; and systems of politicks are as shifting as the sands of Scamander under the foot of Achilles. An improved treatise on musick or dancing, might, indeed, have made many proselytes in this fiddling and jumping age; yet, still the deaf and the gouty would not have become purchasers. But a new System of Cookery, embracing all the contents of the tablecloth, ab ovo usque ad mala, is universally and perpetually interesting. When a superannuated general is fighting his battles over again, and in his narrative cuts off the wing of an army, one is apt to yawn. How different the sensation if he is cutting off the wing of a wild fowl. John duke of Argyll was a great man in his day: he is now hors de combât in Westminster Abbey; and I entreat the noble family of Campbell to reflect, that the Argyll which saves the gravy from coagulating, is the golden urn that shall long preserve the ashes of

their illustrious house from oblivion: The duke is now cold, but our gravy is hot. Who does not remember queen Catharine's character of cardinal Wolsey?

He was a man

Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes.

My interpretation of this passage, with all due deference to Mr. Douce, is, that he was a man who gave excellent dinners. Allow me this, and the inigma of his " ranking himself with princes" is instantly solved. We will not, however, multiply cases to prove a self-evident proposition, but proceed to the work under review; which is introduced by an advertisement, wherein we are informed, that "the following directions were intended for the conduct of the families of the authoress's own daughters, and for the arrangement of their table." But the young ladies, I suppose, being unable to decypher their mamma's cramp manuscript, or, as puddings and pies were the subject of her pen, "obliged by hunger and request of friends," she has consented to roll it into the world in the puff-paste shape of a thick duodecimo. "How rarely," exclaims our authoress, in a pathetick tone," do we meet with fine melted butter!" This calamity was not overlooked by our immortal bard, whose Moor of Venice bewails his

want of that article with tears.

Unused to the melting mood,
Dropt tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gums.

And now, reader, having despatched the advertisement, we enter into the vestibule of the temple, the preface, consisting of "Miscellaneous Observations for the use of the Mistress of a Family." It is a good old custom with the race that write, to consider the topick under their immediate discussion, as the most important subject of inquiry that can agitate the feelings of man. Mrs. Barbauld promotes Richardson, without any remorse, over the head of poor Fielding; and Mr. Hayley

would fain make his molehill CowIf an per overtop Mount Milton. author does not appear in earnest, it is all over with him. "How the deuce can you expect me to grieve," says Horace, "if you don't appear to grieve yourself?" The authoress of Domestick Cookery was aware of this rule, when she introduced her Miscellaneous Observations with a sentence which the hero of Bolt-court himself might not have blushed to

pen:

"In every rank those deserve the greatest praise who best acquit themselves of the duties which their station requires. Indeed, this line of conduct is not a matter of choice but of necessity, if we would maintain the dignity of our own characters as rational beings."

When I had proceeded thus far, I hastily turned the leaves, fearing that I had, by mistake, dipped into the Rambler; but happening to alight upon a green goose pie, and knowing that the sage had never discussed that topick, I returned to the preface. Our heroine of jams and jellies thus proceeds:

"In the variety of female acquirements, though domestick occupations stand not so high as they formerly did, yet when neglected, they produce much human misery," [Here sighs a jar.] "There was a time when ladies knew nothing beyond their own family concerns." [Here a goosepie talks.] "But in the present day there are many who know nothing about them."

Ah, madam, this is a sober truth, though epigrammatically expressed. But, under favour, is it not something like the conceited cook, in the frag ment of the Greek comick poet Straton, who says to his master :

What! I speak as Homer does; And sure a cook may use like privilege, And more than a blind poet.

But mark the surly answer of the cook's master:

Not with me : I'll have no kitchen Homers in my house; So, pray, discharge yourself.

The lady Bountifuls have,I confess, quitted the stage, and the lady Town leys reign in their stead. Who now is so brutal as to expect, that those delicate fingers which, when em

ployed on the piano-forte, emulate in whiteness the keys they rattle, shall be degraded to crack the claw of a lobster, or squeeze reluctant pickles into a jar? Even in the days of Pope, it was one of the many subjects of complaint of that irritable bard, that Our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays.

And though, in the sixty-four years which have elapsed since his death, our wives may have changed their course of reading, yet, it may be doubted, whether they are a whit more wedded to the kitchen than heretofore. The German Mrs. Haller is represented in a mob-cap, with a bunch of keys at her girdle, the keeper of the paradise of pastry; but Mrs. Siddons decorates that frail lady with long drapery, and a yellow muslin turban. Fashion, however, will do much, and as our authoress's Domestick Cookery is universally read, let us hope that the modes of life will change, and that it will be as much the rage to stay at home to save money, as it is now to go abroad to spend it.

Our fair purveyor of patty-pans is gifted with that variety of style which, like her own recipes, is calculated to Milton's strong pinions now not Heaven please all palates. can bound,

Now serpent-like, in prose, he sweeps the ground.

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She informs us, that "to make home the sweet refuge of a husband fatigued by intercourse with a jarring world, to be his enlightened companion and the chosen friend of his heart, these, these are women's duties;" and adds, in the same breath, candles made in cool weather are best." The reader is no sooner apprized that "a pious woman will build up her house before God," than he is told "the price of starch depends upon that of flour." Talents here find themselves placed in the same sentence with treacle; custards are coupled with conjugal fidelity, and moral duties with macaroni. This obliquity of pen, "one eye on earth, the other

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