the Order, and she has thus been cheated of her immortality.*

There is no part of the world in which the connoisseur may not find some delicacy peculiar to the place as the turkey fattened on the olives of Mount Hymettus, at Athens; the famous minestra del riso, at Milan; the pesce reale (royal fish) and the dentici, at Naples; the ombre chevalier (a large species of char), of the Lake of Geneva; the red trout of the lake near Andernach; the crawfish from the Rhine, or the thrushes from the Rhenish vineyards; the pâté de chamois, on the Simplon; the white truffles of Piedmont; the pigeons and the wild boar, at Rome; the coquille d'écrevisse, at Vaucluse; the bouilli-baisse of Marseilles, a dish to which Mr. Thackeray has given new fame by a ballad; the ortolan and beccafico of the south of Europe, &c. &c.—for the list might be indefinitely extended. Yet, to the best of our information and experience, whenever a dish attracts attention by the art displayed in its conception or preparation apart from the material, the artist will commonly be discovered to be French. Many years ago we had the curiosity to inquire, at the Hôtel de France at Dresden, to whom our party were indebted for the enjoyment they had derived from a suprême de volaille, and were informed that the cook and the master of the hotel were one and the same persona Frenchman, ci-devant chef of a Russian minister. He had been eighteen years in Germany, but knew not a word of any language but his own. "A quoi bon, Messieurs," was his reply to our expression of astonishment; "à quoi bon apprendre la langue d'un peuple qui ne possède pas une cuisine?"

The same cannot be affirmed of England, much as

*Lady Morgan says that the title of cordon bleu was first given to Marie, the cook of the fermier-général who built the Elysée-Bourbon.

we may be indebted to our neighbours across the Channel in this respect. It is allowed by competent judges that a first-rate dinner in England is out of all comparison better than in any other country; for we get the best cooks, as we get the best singers and dancers, by bidding highest for them, and we have cultivated certain national dishes to a point which makes them the envy of the world. In proof of this bold assertion, which is backed, moreover, by the unqualified admission of Ude*, we request attention to the menu of the dinner given to Lord Chesterfield, on his quitting the office of Master of the Buckhounds, at the Clarendon. The party consisted of thirty; the price was six guineas a-head; and the dinner was ordered by the late Count d'Orsay.

"Premier Service.

"Potages.-Printannier: à la reine: turtle.

"Poissons.-Turbot (lobster and Dutch sauces): saumon à la tartare: rougets à la cardinal: friture de morue: whitebait.

“Relevés.—Filet de bœuf à la napolitaine: dindon à la chipolata: timballe de macaroni: haunch of venison.

"Entrées. -Croquettes de volaille: petits pâtés aux huîtres: côtelettes d'agneau: purée de champignons : côtelettes d'agneau aux points d'asperge: fricandeau de veau à l'oseille : ris de veau piqué aux tomates: côtelettes de pigeons à la Dusselle: chartreuse de légumes aux faisans: filets de cannetons à la bigarrade: boudins à la Richelieu: sauté de volaille aux truffes: pâté de mouton monté. "Côté.-Bœuf rôti: jambon: salade.

"Second Service.

"Rots.-Chapons, quails, turkey poults, green goose. "Entremets.-Asperges: haricot à la française: mayon

"I will venture to affirm that cookery in England, when well done, is superior to that of any country in the world."-Ude, p. xliii.

naise d'homard: gelée macédoine: aspics d'œufs de pluvier : Charlotte Russe: gelée au Marasquin: crême marbre: corbeille de pâtisserie: vol-au-vent de rhubarb: tourte d'abricots corbeille des meringues: dressed crab: salade au gélatine. — Champignons aux fines herbes.

"Relevés. - Soufflé à la vanille: Nesselrode pudding: Adelaide sandwiches: fondus. Pièces montées," &c. &c.

The reader will not fail to observe how well the English dishes-turtle, whitebait, and venison relieve the French in this dinner; and what a breadth, depth, solidity, and dignity they add to it. Green goose, also, may rank as English, the goose being held in little honour, with the exception of its liver, by the French. The execution is said to have been pretty nearly on a par with the conception, and the whole entertainment was crowned with the most inspiriting success. The price was not unusually large. A tradition has reached us of a dinner at The Albion, under the auspices of the late venerable Sir William Curtis, which cost the party between thirty and forty pounds a-piece. It might well have cost twice as much, for, amongst other acts of extravagance, they despatched a special messenger to Westphalia to choose a ham. We have also a vague recollection of a bet as to the comparative merits of the Albion and York House (Bath) dinners, which was to have been formally decided by a dinner of unparalleled munificence, and nearly equal cost, at each; but it became a drawn bet, the Albion beating in the first course, and the York House in the second. But these are reminiscences, on which, we frankly own, no great reliance is to be placed.

Lord Southampton once gave a dinner at the Albion, at ten guineas a-head; and the ordinary price for the best dinner at this house (including wine) is three guineas. In our opinion extravagance adds nothing to real enjoyment, and a first-rate English

dinner (exclusive of wine) ought to be furnished for a third of the price.

This work would be incomplete without some attempt to commemorate the great artists who have acquired an eminent culinary reputation on British ground.

Vilmet, Leclair, Henry Brand, Morel, Grillon, Chevassut, Goubeaud, and Huggins, were famous in their time, and formed the eminent culinary brigade -of Carlton House; Courroux, Honoré, Ménil, Morel senior, Barge, House, Cotton, Mills, Sams, Oudot senior, Farmer, Pratt, and Dick Wood, were firstrate cooks. Honoré was many years cook to the late Lord Holland and to the late Marchioness of Hertford. Florence, cook to successive Dukes of Buccleuch, is immortalised by Scott, as inventor of the potage à la Meg Merrilies. Farmer, for many years cook to the late Earl of Bathurst, is said to have been the very first English artist of his day. Pratt was head cook to his late R. H. the Duke of York.

At the head of the celebrities here enumerated, we must not forget to place Louis Eustache Ude. For upwards of twenty years he had the honour of educating the palate of the first Earl of Sefton, who, in his day, was considered a great gourmet as well as a great gourmand - and, be it understood, these qualifications are seldom united. The difference between a gourmet and a gourmand we take to be this: a gourmet is he who selects, for his nice and learned delectation, the most choice delicacies, prepared in the most scientific manner; whereas, the gourmand bears a closer analogy to that class of great eaters ill-naturedly (we dare say) denominated, or classed with, aldermen. Ude was also once maître-d'hôtel to the late Duke of York, from whom he contrived to elicit many a hearty laugh through his clever mimicry. Under his auspices, also, it was that "the great play

house" in St. James's, yclept Crockford's, was ushered into its destructive career.

Louis Eustache Ude was verily the Gil Blas of the kitchen. He had, in his latter days, a notion of writing his memoirs; and if they had not proved deeply interesting, those who knew him well can with truth assert that many would have relished the curious scandal and pleasant gossip with which his astonishing memory was so well stored. Ude's mother was an attractive and lively milliner, who married an underling in Louis XVI.'s kitchen. She thought Master Eustache too pretty a boy to be sacrificed to the "Dieu ventru." The consequence was, that after an attempt made by his sire to train him in his own 66 glorious path," the youngster absconded, and apprenticed himself, first to a "bijoutier en faux," then to an engraver, next to a printer, and lastly to a haberdasher! after which he became traveller for a mercantile house at Lyons. Something occurred at this point which occasioned him to change his vocation once more. He returned to Paris, aud there tried his genius as an actor at a small theatre in the Rue Chantreine. He soon, however (aided by a discriminating public), discovered that his share of the world's cake was not on that stage, and, by some means, he set up an office and a "cabriolet," and forthwith started into life as an

แ

agent de change." This scheme did not last long; he got "cleaned out" on 'Change, and shortly after was installed as an inspector of gambling-houses. He soon tired of this appointment, and, on relinquishing it, determined to return to his original calling, and became once again a cook.

After practising in the culinary profession some few years in the early dawn of the fortunes of the house of Bonaparte, Ude raised himself to the post of maître-d'hotel to Madame Letitia Bonaparte. Here