national vices, as it remained from our early wars in the Netherlands until the conclusion of our late war with France. Fashion, influenced by good sense, has waved her wand, and the swine have ceased to wallow "in Epicurus' sty."

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A treatise might be written upon our ancient drinking customs. What wine-bibbers and beer-bibbers were the Elizabethan swash-bucklers, and the Stuart cavaliers! No thin potations; no half-filled cups for them! In those days he was nobody that could not "drink superoragulum;' ""carouse the hunter's hoope;" or quaff upse freeze crosse." The satirist Nash gives a curious picture of society in the thirsty Tudor days. He delineates eight different kinds of drunkards, and each must have been sufficiently common to enable him so accurately to detect and describe their humors. "The first," he says, "is Ape-drunk, and he leaps and sings, and hollows and dances for the heavens; the second is Lyon-drunk, and he flings the pots about the house, breaks the glass windows with his dagger, and is apt to quarrel with any man that speaks to him; the third is Swine-drunk, heavy, lumpish, and sleepy, and cries for a little more drink, and a few more clothes; the fourth is Sheep-drunk, wise in his own conceit when he can not bring forth a right word; the fifth is Maudlin-drunk, when a fellow will weep for kindness in the midst of his drink, and kiss you, saying, "By God, captain, I love thee; go thy ways, thou dost not think so often of me as I do of thee. I would (if it pleased God) I could not love thee as I do;" and then he puts his finger in his eye and cries. The sixth is Martin-drunk, when a man is drunk, and drinks himself sober ere he stir; the seventh is Goat-drunk, when in his drunkenness he had no mind but on lechery. The The eighth is Fox-drunk, when he is crafty drunk, as many of the Dutchmen be, which will never bargain but when they are drunk. All these species, and more, I have seen practiced in one company at one sitting, when I have been permitted to remain sober amongst them only to note their several humors.

To drink super-ragulum, that is, on the rail, is thus explained by Nash : "After a man has turned up the bottom of his cup, a drop was allowed to settle on the thumb-nail. If more than a drop trickled down, the drink er was compelled to drink again by way of penance.

Carps' tongues, the pith of an English chine of beef, Nor our Italian, delicate wild mushrooms, And yet a drawer on too; and if you show not An appetite, and a strong one, I'll not say To eat it, but devour it, without grace too, (For it will not stay a preface,) I am sham'd, And all my past provocatives will be jeer'd at." Ben Jonson affords us some glimpses of the drinking habits common to all classes. In the comedy of "Bartholomew Fair" he makes Overdo say: "Look into any angle of the town, the Streights, or the Bermudas, where the quarreling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time but with bottleale and tobacco? The lecturer is o' one side, and his pupils o' the other; but the seconds are still bottle-ale and tobacco, for which the lecturer reads, and the novices pay. Thirty pound a week in bottle-ale! forty in tobacco! and ten more in ale again! Then for a suit to drink in, so much, and, that being slaver'd, so much for another suit! and then a third suit, and then a fourth suit! and still the bottle-ale slavereth, and the tobacco stinketh."

After the Restoration, England for a time abandoned herself to a national saturnalia, and men drank deeply, from the king to the lowest hind. The novels of Fielding and Smollett are full of pictures of wild debauchery and drunken extravagance. It was the same with the next generation-with the generation that looked upon George, Prince Regent, as the first gentleman in Europe; shameless profligacy and mad drunkenness were the reproach of every class. A threebottle man was then a King in Israel! Statesmen drank deep at their political councils; soldiers drank deep in the mess-room; ladies drank in their boudoirs; gentlemen at their clubs and their dining-tables! The criminal on his way to Tyburn stopped to drink a parting glass. Hogarth, in his wonderful pictures, has held the mirror up to society; in his "Gin Lane" and "Beer Court," as in his "Marriage a la Mode," he has shown how general was the shame, how terrible the

curse! Thank Heaven! it is not "the fashion" in this present year of grace to bemuse one's self with drink. We love the cheerful "glass," but eschew the "punchbowl" and the "bottle."

Hitherto we have dealt with English fashions chiefly. Before we quit the subject, it will be as well to glance at the customary food of other nations. We shall find that man exercises his gastronomical powers upon an astonishing variety of subjects. Not many of these should we be solicitous for Fashion to render popular in the British isles, notwithstanding the praiseworthy exertions and generous sacrifices of the members of the Acclimatization Society.

Let us suppose that some philanthropic gourmands-some adventurous Brown, Jones and Robinson-are going on a tour of culinary discovery. First, then, they may dine with the Esquimaux in a field of ice, and be treated to tallow candles as a particularly delicious dish, with a slice of seal by way of something solid. Or they will find their plates loaded with the liver of the walruswhich, by the way, an American savant has commended in enthusiastic terms. They may vary their dinner by helping themselves to a lump of whale-meat, red and coarse and rancid, but very toothsome to an Esquimau notwithstanding.

If they sat down at a Greenlander's table, they would find it loaded with, or-to use the fashionable expression-"groaning under" a dish of "half putrid whale's tail," which has been lauded as a savory matter, not dissimilar in flavor to cream cheese! Walrus's tongue is also a dainty, and the liver of porpoise makes a Greenlander's mouth water. They may finish their repast with a slice of reindeer or a roasted rat, and drink to their host's health in a bumper of train oil.

dish for the table, though new settlers can not at first overcome its striking resemblance to man. The female has hands, and holds its young up to its breast precisely as a human mother would. We fear, therefore, that manatu would be objected to by Brown, Jones, and Robinson.

Let them visit China, then, where fashion and the cooks have invented some extraordinary dishes. Among these a foremost place must be given to soup compounded from sharks' fins, so that they import every year from India twelve to fifteen thousand hundredweight of them. Off Kurrachee, near Bombay, about forty thousand sharks are annually offered up to John Chinaman's eccentric appetite. Then the rats! Why, game is not half so religiously preserved in England, nor is venison nearly so much esteemed. Birds' nests, too, supply the materials of a very fashionable soup. Those made use of are the nests of the Hirundo esculenta. The gathering of these nests, which are procured from caves on the southerly sea coast of Java, takes place three times in a year-in the end of April, the middle of August, and in December. “They are composed of a mucilaginous substance, but as yet they have never been analyzed with sufficient accuracy to show the constituents. Externally, they resemble ill-concocted, fibrous isinglass, and are of a white color, inclining to red. Their thickness is little more than that of a silver spoon, and the weight from a quarter to half an ounce. When dry they are brittle and wrinkled; the size is nearly that of a goose's egg. Those that are dry, white, and clean, are the most valuable. They are packed in bundles, with split rattans run through to preserve the shape. Those procured after the young are fledged, are not saleable in China. After the nests are obtained, they are separated from feathers and dirt, are carefully dried and packed, and are then fit for the market. The Chinese, who are the only

bring them in junks to this market, where they command extravagant prices-the best, or white kind, often being worth four thousand dollars per picul, (a Chinese weight, equal to 1334 lbs. avoirdupois,) which is nearly twice their weight in silver. The middling kind is worth from twelve to eighteen hundred, and the worst-or those procured after fledging-one hundred and

fifty to two hundred dollars per picul. The labor bestowed to render the birds' nests fit for table is enormous; every feather, stick, or impurity of any kind, is carefully removed; and then, after undergoing many washings and preparations, it is made into a soft, delicious jelly."

John Chinaman has a penchant for dogs, and fattens them as the Berkshire farmer fattens pigs. This predilection is also shared by the ladies and gentlemen of Zanzibar, in Africa, the aristocracy of the Sandwich Islands, and the half-mannish, half-brutish aborigines of Australia. Brown, Jones, and Robinson, in Canton, may go to the butcher's shop, and order "a fine leg of young dog," just as Mrs. Tomkins orders her "leg of lamb" at her butcher's in Camberwell. A traveler who has visited the Sandwich Islands asserts that, at a house or hut where on one occasion he dined, near every place at table was a plump young dog; and its flesh was so much relished by his liberal palate, that he speaks of it as combining the peculiar excellencies of lamb and pork. These Sandwich dogs are fed with peculiar nicety, and are considered fit for market when two years old. The mode in which they are cooked is somewhat peculiar. A hole is dug in the ground large enough to contain the puppy. A good fire is built up in this hole, and large stones cast into it to remain until red hot. You then pile these red-hot stones about the sides and bottom, throw in leaves of odorous plants, and lay the dog, well cleaned and carefully prepared, upon the glowing stones. More leaves, more stones, and finally some earth, are heaped upon the smoking dainty, until the oven becomes, as it were, hermetically sealed. The meat, when done, is full of delicious juices, and worthy of a place at the Lord Mayor's table on the 9th of November.

sort of carex called touté, on which the insects deposit their eggs very freely. This carex is made into bundles, which are removed to the Lake Texcuco, and floated in the water until covered with eggs. The bundles are then taken up, dried, and beaten over a large cloth. The eggs being thus disengaged, are cleaned, sifted, and pounded into flour.

Penguins' eggs, cormorants' eggs, gulls' eggs, albatrosses' eggs, turtles' eggs-all are made subservient to man's culinary experiments. Turtles' eggs are of the same size as pigeons' eggs. The mother turtle deposits them at night-about one hundred at a time in the dry sand, and leaves them to be hatched by the genial sun. The Indian tribes who dwell upon the palmy banks of the Orinoco, procure from them a sweet and limpid oil, which is their substitute for butter. Lizards' eggs are regarded as a bonne bouche in some of the South Sea Islands; and the eggs of the guana, a species of lizard, are much favored by West Indians. Alligators' eggs, too, are eaten in the Antilles, and resemble hen's eggs, it is said, in size and shape. Infinite is the variety of edibles discovered by necessity and sanctioned by fashion!

An attempt was made, a few years ago, to introduce into France the practice of "hippophagy," but Fashion did not take kindly to horseflesh. M. Isidore St. Hilaire, however, grew enthusiastic in his advocacy of the new viand. Horseflesh," he exclaimed, "has long been regarded as of a sweetish disagreeable taste, very tough, and not to be eaten without difficulty. But so many different facts are opposed to this prejudice, that it is impossible not to perceive the slightness of its foundation. The free or wild horse is hunted as game in all parts of the world where it exists-Asia, Africa, and Americaand, perhaps, even now, in Europe. The domestic horse itself is made use of as ali

The Mexicans, a people dear to Napoleon III, make a species of bread of the eggs of insects-hemipterous insects which frequent the fresh waters of the Mexican lagunes. The natives cultivate, in the lagune of Chalco, a VOL. IV.-No. 1. 34

altogether alimentary-in Africa, America, Asia, and in some parts of Europe.

"Its flesh is relished by people the most different in their manner of life, and of races the most diverse-negro, Mongol, Malay, American, Caucasian. It was much esteemed up to the eighth century among the ancestors of some of the greatest nations of Western Europe, who had it in general use, and gave it up with regret. Soldiers to whom it has

been served out, and people in towns who have purchased it in markets, have frequently taken it for beef. Still more often, and indeed habitually, it has been sold in restaurants, even in the best, as venison (!) and without the customers ever suspecting the fraud or complaining of it." Let our readers take warning by this revelation, and never call for venison at a Parisian restaurant.

Insects, in many parts of the world, supply esteemed dishes. Thus, locusts are eaten by several tribes of North American Indians; the Bushmen of Africa indulge in roasted spiders; maggots tickle the palates of the Australian aborigines; and the Chinese feast upon the chrysalis of the silkworm.

The inhabitants of the Philippines indulge in frogs as a peculiarly edible delicacy. After the rains, says a traveler, they are taken from the ditch that encompasses the walls of Manilla in great numbers, for they are then fat, in good condition for eating, and make an admirable curry. The French are still a frog-eating people. Mr. Frank Buckland, in his amusing" Curiosities of Natural History,"

observes :

"In France, frogs are considered a luxury, as any bon vivant ordering a dish of them at the Trois Frères, at Paris, may by the long price speedily ascertain. Not wishing to try such an expensive experiment in gastronomy, I went to the large market in the Faubourg St. Germain, and inquired for frogs. I was referred to a stately-looking dame at a fishstall, who produced a box nearly full of them, huddling and crawling about, and occasionally croaking as though aware of the fate to which they were destined. The price fixed was two a penny; and having

ordered a dish to be prepared, the Dame de la Halle dived her hand in among them, and having secured her victim by the hind legs, she severed him in twain with a sharp knife; the legs, minus skin, still struggling, were placed on a dish; and the head, with the fore legs affixed, retained life and motion, and performed such motions that the operation became painful to look at. These legs were afterwards cooked at the restaurateur's, being served up fried in bread-crumbs, as larks are in England; and most excellent eating they were, tasting more like the delicate flesh of the rabbit than any thing else I can think of. I afterwards tried a dish of the common English frog, but his flesh is not so white nor so tender as that of his French brother."

The vagaries of fashion have not as yet introduced frogs into our English bills of fare, and, as far as our own taste is concerned, we trust no such innovation will be attempted. But if ever frogs should figure on our table, it is some consolation to reflect that our cooks will prevent them from tasting like frogs-they will so spice, and flavor, and combine, and dilute the dish. As Sam Slick says, "Veal, to be good, must look like any thing else but veal. You mustn't know it when you see it, or it's vulgar; mutton must be incog., too; beef must have a mask on; any thin' that looks solid, take a spoon to; any thin' that looks light, cut with a knife; if a thing looks like fish, you take your oath it is flesh; and if it seems real flesh, it's only disguised, for it's sure to be fish; nothin' must be nateral-natur is out of fashion here. This is a manufacturin' country; every thing is done by machinery, and that that aint must be made to look like it; and I must say, the dinner machinery is perfect."

IV.

ESSAYS.

The aggregate happiness enjoyed by a truly united pair, with the airy help it furnishes, gives them a lighter poise than is ever possible to us of the bachelor fraternity, bur