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out being either "goosified," or "lambified," and game and poultry in the shape of crawfish or hedgehogs;

These travesties rather show the patience than the science of the cook,-and the bad taste of those who prefer such baby tricks to old English nourishing and substantial plain cookery.

We could have made this the biggest book with half the trouble it has taken me to make it the best:-concentration and perspicuity have been my aim.

We do not know what the Doctor understands as "a big book;" but to our notions (and we are experienced in the weights and measures of printed works), the Cook's Oracle is a tolerably huge and Gog-like production. We should have been glad

to have had a calculation of what the MS. lost in the printing. In truth, a comparative scale of the wasting of meat and prose during the cooking, would be no uninteresting performance. For our parts, we can only remark, from experience, that these our articles in the London Magazine boil up like spinage. We fancy, when written, that we have a heap of leaves fit to feed thirty columns; and they absolutely and alarmingly shrink up to a page or two when dressed by the compositor.

The romantic fancy of cooks is thus restrained:

The imagination of most cooks, is so incessantly on the hunt for a relish,-that they seem to think, they can not make sauce sufficiently savoury, without putting into it, every thing that ever was eaten; and supposing every addition must be an improvement, they frequently overpower the natural flavour of their plain sauces, by overloading them with salt and spices, &c. : -but, remember, these will be deteriorated by any addition, save only just salt enough to awaken the palate-the lover of "piquance," and compound flavours, may have recourse to "the Magazine of Taste." Again

Why have clove and allspice,-or mace and nutmeg in the same sauce, or marjoram,-thyme,-and savory;-or onions, leeks,-eshallots-and garlick: one will very well supply the place of the other, and the frugal cook may save something considerable by attending to this, to the advantage of her employers, and her own time and trouble.-You might as well, to make soup, order one quart of water from the Thames, another from the New River, a third from Hampstead, and a fourth from Chelsea, with a certain portion of spring.

and rain water.

437

spite of his correction of the cooks, is The Doctor himself, however, in When you have opened a bottle of not entirely free from the fanciful. catsup, he says, "6 use only the best superfine velvet taper corks." This is drawing a cork with the hand of a poet.

it? the work commences afresh! And now, will the reader believe After all our labour,-after all our travelling through boiling, broiling, roasting, &c. we find that we have the whole to go over again. To our utter dismay, page 142 begins anew with-boiling! It is little comfort to us that the joints and cuttings come in for their distinct treatment: we seem to have made no way; and sit down with as much despair as a young school-girl who, after three quarters of a year's dancing, is put back to the Scotch step. Beef has been spoken of before; but we have not at all made up our minds on the following subject:

Obs.-In Mrs. Mason's Ladies' Assistant this joint is called haunch-bone; in Henderson's Cookery, edge-bone; in Domestic Management, aitch-bone; in Reynolds' Cookery, ische-bone; in Mrs. Lydia Fisher's Prudent Housewife, ach-bone; in Mrs. M'Iver's Cookery, hook-bone. We have also seen it spelt each-bone, and ridgenatch-bone, bone, and we have also heard it called

Of "half a calf's-head," Dr. Kitchener says, slily enough, "If you like it full-dressed, score it superficially; beat up the yolk of an egg, and rub it over the head with a feather; powder it," &c. Such a calf'sbe company for the best nobleman's head as this, so full-dressed, might ditto in the land.

It is quite impossible for us to accompany Dr. Kitchener regularly through" roasting, frying, vegetables," &c. as we are by no means sure that our readers would sanction the encore. and a bit there, from the Doctor's We shall pick a bit here dainty larder; and take care to choose, as the English do with a French bill of fare, from those niceties which are novelties.

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"A pig," observes the Doctor, as though he were speaking of any other dull obstinate personage, a very troublesome subject to roast. Most persons have them baked; send a quarter of a pound of butter, and

beg the baker to baste it well." The following occurs to us to be as difficult a direction to fulfil as any of Sir Thomas Parkins's wrestling instructions: "Lay your pig back to back in the dish, with one half of the head on each side, and the ears one at each end, which you must take care to make nice and crisp, or you will get scolded, as the good man was who bought his wife a pig with one ear." The point at the end is like the point of a spit. Again: "A sucking pig, like a young child, must not be left for an instant!" Never was such affection manifested before for this little interesting and persecuted tribe.

The

If Isaac Walton be the greatest of writers on the catching of fish, Dr. Kitchener is, beyond doubt, triumphant over all who have written upon the dressing of them. Doctor dwells upon "the fine pale red rose colour" of pickled salmon, till you doubt whether he is not admiring a carnation. "Cod's skull" becomes flowery and attractive; and fine silver eels," when "stewed Wiggy's way," swim in beauty as well as butter. The Doctor points out the best method of killing this perversely living fish, observing, very justly, "that the humane executioner does certain criminals the favour to hang them, before he breaks

them on the wheel."

Of salmon, the Doctor rather quaintly and pozingly observes,the thinnest part of the fish is the fattest." "If you have any left, put it into a pye-dish, and cover it," &c.: the direction is conditional we perceive. Remember to choose your lobsters "heavy and lively." "Motion," says the Doctor, "is the index of their freshness."

Upon oysters, Dr. Kitchener is eloquent indeed. He is, as it were, "native here, and to the manner born."

The true lover of an oyster, will have some regard for the feelings of his little favourite, and will never abandon it to the mercy of a bungling operator,-but will open it himself, and contrive to detach the fish from the shell so dexterously, that the oyster is hardly conscious he has been ejected from his lodging, till he feels the teeth of the piscivorous gourmand tickling him to death.

to be thus surprised, to be thus pleasingly ejected from its tenement of mother of pearl,-to be thus tickled to death? When we are placed in our shell, we should have no objection to be astonished with a similar delicate and titillating opening!

Giblet soup requires to be eaten with the fingers. We were not aware that these handy instruments could be used successfully in the devouring of gravies and soups.

N. B. This is rather a family dish than a company one,-the bones cannot be well picked, without the help of alive pincers.

Since Tom Coryat introduced forks, A. D. 1642, it has not been the fashion to

put "pickers and stealers " into soup.

After giving a most elaborate recipe for mock turtle soup, he proceeds

This soup was eaten by the committee of taste with unanimous applause, and they pronounced it a very satisfactory substitute for "the far fetcht and dear bought" turtle; which itself is indebted for its title of" sovereign of savouriness," to the rich soup with which it is surrounded; without its paraphernalia of double relishes, a "starved turtle," has not more intrinsic sapidity than a FATTED CALF.” And a little further on he observes—

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Obs. This is a delicious soup, within the reach of those who "eat to live;" but if it had been composed expressly for those who only "live to eat," I do not know how it could have been made more agreeable: as it is, the lover of good eat

ing will wish his throat a mile long, and every inch of it palate."

Our readers will pant to have boiled tripe, calf-head, or cow-heel.” "Mr. Michael Kelly's sauce for It is this:

Garlick vinegar, a tablespoonful,—of mustard, brown sugar, and black pepper, a teaspoonful each; stirred into half a pint

of oiled melted butter.

Gad 'a mercy, what a gullet must be in the possession of Mr. Michael Kelly!

We think the following almost a superfluous direction to cooks:"Take your chops out of the fryingpan," p. 324; but then he tells you, in another place, "to put your tongue into plenty of cold water;'

p.

156. which makes all even again. After giving ample directions for the making of essence of anchovy, Who would not be an oyster, the Doctor rather damps our ardour

for entering upon it by the following observation: "Mem. You cannot make essence of anchovy half so cheap as you can buy it."

The following passage is rather too close an imitation of one of the puff-directions in the Critic:

To a pint of the cleanest and strongest rectified spirit, (sold by Rickards, Piccadilly,) add two drachms and a half of the sweet oil of orange peel, (sold by Stewart, No. 11, Old Broad Street, near the Bank,) shake it up, &c.

Obs. We do not offer this receipt as a rival to Mr. Johnson's curaçoa-it is only proposed as an humble substitute for that incomparable liqueur.

The Doctor proceeds to luxuriate upon made dishes, &c. ; in the course of which he says,-" The sirloin of beef I divide into three parts; I first have it nicely boned!" This is rather a suspicious way of having it at all. Mrs. Phillips's Irish stew has all the fascination of her country-women. In treating of shin of beef, the Doctor gives us a proverb which we never remember to have heard before:

Of all the fowls of the air, commend me to the shin of beef,-for there's marrow for the master, meat for the mistress, gristles for the servants, and bones for the dogs.

On pounded cheese, the Doctor writes" The piquance of this but tery-caseous relish," &c. Is not this a little over-done? The passage, however, on the frying of eggs, makes up for all.

Be sure the fryingpan is quite clean; when the fat is hot, break two or three eggs into it; do not turn them, but, while they are frying, keep pouring some of the fat over them with a spoon-when the yolk just begins to look white, which it will in about a couple of minutes, they are enough; the white must not lose its transparency, but the yolk be seen blushing through it :-if they are done nicely, they will look as white and delicate as if they had been poached, take them up with a tin slice, drain the fat from them, trim them neatly, and send them up with the bacon round them.

The beauty of a poached egg, is for the yolk to be seen blushing through the white, which should only be just sufficiently hardened, to form a transparent veil for the egg.

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So much for the Cook's Oracle. The style is a piquant sauce to the solid food of the instructions; and we never recollect reading tences that relished so savourily. The Doctor appears to have written his work upon the back of a dripping pan, with the point of his spit,-so very cook-like does he dish up his remarks. If we were to be cast away upon a desert island, and could only carry one book ashore, we should take care to secure the Cook's Oracle; for, let victuals be ever so scarce, there are pages in that erudite book that are, as Congreve's Jeremy says, "a feast for an emperor." Who could starve with such a larder of reading?

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GLEANINGS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS.

LAYBACH.

LAYBACH, a city whose name has excited so much interest to all Europe, is the capital of Carniola, and is situated in the ancient Vindelician Illyria, where it was a place of considerable importance. The ancients, who attributed its foundation to Jason, called it Armona, the Austrians Laybach, and the Italians Lubiana; which names have been also given to the river that runs through the city in a longitudinal direction, and divides it into two nearly equal parts. Across it are three bridges, all of them remarkable on account of the numerous images of saints, and their pious symbols; and always crowded with persons who resort to them to pay their devotions. Laybach contains, at the utmost, not more than 20,000 inhabitants, who speak a dialect differing but little from the Croatian and the real Illyrian; but there are few of them who are not also acquainted with either German, Italian, or Romaic,-and not unfrequently with all these tongues. The long residence of the French among them, has rendered them very familiar likewise with that language, so that the people are in fact polyglotts: even the lower classes possess those elements of information which are not always to be found in the universities and academies of other countries, since, in addition to these different idioms, and the various Sclavonian dialects, a knowledge of both Greek and Latin is more general here, among all ranks, than among people of education elsewhere.

The streets of Laybach are broad, wellbuilt, and extremely clean. Several of the public buildings are worthy the attention of the traveller, on account of their graceful simplicity; nor will the extensive provincial library fail to excite his curiosity.

The Carniolians are of large stature, powerful, and rather inclined to stoop; they have mild, noble, and expressive countenances; and the females are remarkable for their delicacy of skin and fresh complexions; but their mouths are far from beautiful, being but poorly furnished with teeth,-the want of which is very general among the inhabitants of the sub-alpine plains, and is attributed by them to the quality of the water they drink. They possess an extraordinary attachment to finery, and a passion equally strong for dancing and theatrical amusements. Their national costume is really charming. With respect to their moral qualities, it is almost impossible to find any people more amiable or perfect: sober, devout, hospitable, and moderate in all his inclinations, the Carniolian has the reputation, among the EastIllyrian provinces, of being crafty, merely because he is more civilized. The history

of this people does not record a single revolution or political storm, not even a temporary interruption of the public tranquility: to them, therefore, Voltaire's remark applies in its full force, "Heureux le peuple dont l'histoire est ennuyeuse!" It is, perhaps, more remarkable, that persons who have resided several years at Laybach do not remember to have heard of a single criminal. Even the language itself has no expressions for many of those crimes which are so frequent in other parts of Europe. In 1812, fifty years had elapsed since there had been an instance of & public execution; nor were the people acquainted with even so much as the forms of the various instruments elsewhere employed for the purposes of punishment.

Owing to its situation, Laybach holds regular intercourse with Vienna, Venice, and Constantinople, with all of which it has numerous connexions. The nearest Illyrian cities are-Adelsberg, celebrated for the Zirknitz lake, whose waters are as productive of fish, as its banks are of game and corn;-Idria, known for its mines;Krainburg, whose fine situation recals to mind the most impressive features of Swiss landscape; the beautiful Trieste, that once rivalled Genoa in its palaces, and was not inferior to any port of the main land ;— lastly, the smiling Gonizza, that commands the course of the delightful Isonzo, and whose more remote fields are irrigated by the waters of the Trinaro. This is a country replete with the reminiscences of heroic history: it preserves the memory of Castor and Pollux, the first who are said to have navigated the Save; of the conqueror of the Golden Fleece, who here founded cities during his progress; of Iapis, their first legislator; of Diomede, the first king of Tergeste (Trieste); and of Antenor, who penetrated farther, and settled on the banks of the Brenta, where he founded Padua.

Laybach is overlooked by a castle situated upon a beautiful hill, covered with the finest plants, and commanding the city: the country around is enriched with noble woods of beech and fir; and about three quarters of a mile from the city flows the Save, upon which river, according to tradition, the Argonauts first launched their vessel.

No country surpasses Carniola in natural treasures. It is impossible to form an idea of the vast variety of its insects, and of its vegetable productions, from the Flora and the Fauna Carniola; for although two valuable works, they are very imperfect with regard to modern discoveries. The skins of the foxes and bears of this district are

highly esteemed in commerce for their ex-
treme beauty; game of every description
is abundant; and the market of Laybach
is supplied, even to excess, with both salt
and fresh-water fish. Here are caught the
largest crabs in Europe, or perhaps in the
world, being from ten to fifteen inches
long; and these, with a kind of land
tortoise, are highly esteemed, and reckoned
great dainties.
The annals of ancient
epicurism inform us, that Lucullus had
the delicate snails served up at his tables
sent from Illyria; and even at present, the
lumache Illiriche constitute a favourite
dish of the Venetian and Neapolitan gour-
mands.

In proportion as the Carniolians are favoured by nature, do they seem to neglect the conveniences and the luxuries of art. When the French armies arrived here, they were obliged to order furniture from other places, for the inhabitants were unacquainted with most of the commonest articles. The walls of their rooms are only white-washed, or at most, are ornamented with some pattern, which is formed by means of the figure being cut out in a piece of wood this is placed to the sur face of the wall, and the colour then applied. Even what articles of furniture they have, are neither elegant nor convenient :

their beds resemble coffins in shape and dimensions. Notwithstanding their vicinity to, and their intercourse with, Venice, they are uncontaminated by any of its dissipa tions, and particularly gambling; although the French have now instructed them in some games of hazard. The promenades at Laybach are not remarkable for beauty, but the fine scenery of the environs renders these less necessary than in other places. The noble woods of Leopold's-Ruhe are about a quarter of a league from the city; and a variety of other enchanting rural spots render the vicinity pre-eminently delightful. Rebell, a landscape-painter from Rome, is now employed in taking views of many of the most picturesque and striking of these scenes.

This city has produced some eminent scholars and learned men :-the naturalists Scopoli, Fabricius, Panzer, and Paikull, were born here; as were also Baron Zois, one of the greatest mineralogists of the present day; Pezneigger, the translator of several of the Greek poets; Wodnik, Adelung, and Gräntz, the two latter of whom were very eminent philologists; and Kalister, the present librarian at Laybach, a man whose talents and information deserve a wider field for their exertion.

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LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE, &c. Population of Naples.-Cavalier Luca di Samueli Cagnazzi, the Author of an Essay upon Population, states that in 1451, under Alphonso I, the population of Naples was 1,597,376, and went on increasing progressively while the kingdom was under the Arragonian government, till the year 1505. Under the Austrian dominion its numbers fell off, but they increased again, and the population was gradually enlarged. In 1766, during the reign of Charles III, the inhabitants amounted to 3,953,098; in 1775, they were increased to 4,249,430, in 1791, to 4,925,381, and in 1804 to 4,974,659. In his work this writer often corrects the errors and mis-statements of Malthus and other celebrated authors on the science of political economy.

materially from the Pantograph, an instrument hitherto used for that purpose; he has, therefore, distinguished it by the name of Apograph.' The drawings may be copied upon paper, copper, or any other substance; and may be made either to the same scale as the original, or magnified, or reduced.

Copenhagen.The Museum of Northern Antiquities which was established at Copenhagen no longer ago than 1809, has so increased since that period, that it now contains upwards of 6,000 articles, and is become one of the most extensive and valuable collections of the sort, in Europe. The discovery of pieces of antiquity is announced, and the articles themselves are described, in the Antiquarian Annals, a publication destined to this purpose.

Apograph.. Mr. Andrew Smith, a young man at the Ayr Stone manufactory, has invented a machine for making copies of drawings, differing in many respects

Russia. The Academy of the Sciences at St. Petersburgh has held a conference for the purpose of inquiring what has been done since 1815, towards investigating the history of the Sclavonic nations, particularly during the interval between the sixth and eleventh centuries; and to ascertain what steps had been taken for discovering their remains and monuments, whether of remote antiquity or of the middle ages. A. C. Lehrberg's Researches into the ancient History of Russia, published by the Academy in 1816, was allowed to be the most solid and satisfactory historical work on the subject that has appeared. It has been faithfully translated into Russian, by D. Jazykow, at the expence of the Chancellor, Count Romanzow, and enriched with an index, and Lehrberg's map of Russia in the year 1462. Many excellent historical papers are to be found in the different journals published in this country, that deserve to be given to the world in a separate and less fugitive form.

The Melzi Library.-The whole of the

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