and the stew-pans of the other may deal in death, or pour out gout and indigestions.

Sickness even has its delights, and among them, as we have before hinted, is that of the physician taking his leave, and making room for his culinary successor. The author of this book, which we most earnestly commend to the libraries of all our friends, particularly those who are artists and men of taste, is both a physician and a "master kitchener" of experience and practice. He dedicates his work" to tasteful palates, keen appetites, and capacious stomachs," assures us his receipts" are not a mere marrowless collection of shreds and patches, and cuttings and pastings, from obsolete works, but a bonâ fide register of practical facts, accumulated by a perseverance not to be subdued, or evaporated, by the igniferous terrors of a roasting fire in the dog days. The receipts," he assures us, and we have full reason to believe him, "have been written down by the fire-side, with a spit in one hand, and a pen in the other, in defiance of the combined odoriferous and calificient repellents, of roasting and boiling, frying and broiling; submitting to a labour no preceding cookerybook-maker, perhaps, ever attempted to encounter; having eaten of each receipt, before he set it down in his book."

This is all as it should be, this is taking the bull by the horns, is like drawing, perspective and actual dissection to the painter; like casting from nature to the sculptor, and like geometry and actual measurement to the architect. Besides this certificate of the eatability of the respective preparations, we are assured and we feel consolation in the assurance, following as we do his prescriptions in our domestic cookery, that the cardinal virtues of that art," cleanliness, frugality, nourishment and palatableness," qualities as essential, in our opinion, as light, shade, drawing, expression and colouring in another art, " preside over each preparation; for I have not presumed to insert a single compo

sition, without previously obtaining the imprimatur of an enlightened and most indefatigable COMMITTEE OF TASTE' (composed of the most persevering and profound palaticians, and thorough-bred grands gourmands of the first magnitude) whose persevering and cordial co-operation I cannot too highly praise; and here do I most gratefully record the unremitting zeal they manifested during their arduous progress of proving the respective receipts, who were so truly philosophically and disinterestedly regardless of wear and tear of teeth and stomach, that their labour appeared a pleasure to them." Prodigious! Would we could record as philosophical and as disinterested a regard to wear and tear of shoe leather, coach, horses and time in another "committee of taste," concerning certainly a much less important affair, the national monuments. But architects are not cooks, nor national monuments feeders of a nation.

Thanks be to this enlightened and most indefatigable Committee, and if one can be added to their number, or if there ever be a vacancy in such a healthy and pure epicurean body, we would be a candidate for the honour. Assuring the worthy president, whoever he may be, whether the industrious author, or his illustrious friend, Apicius Coelius the younger, with whose erudite notes several of the pages are enriched, that we will be as indefatigable as our editorial functions will allow, and as disinterested in the wear and tear of our teeth and stomach as the best. We ground our pretensions on our love for the art, on our practice as an amateur, having often cooked a kidney for our breakfast, a chop, and sometimes a steak, for our dinner, and are allowed to be fond of a little bit of cookery. We are besides acknowledged by several friends to be connoisseurs, and have improved their cooks by the fastidiousness of our taste, as we have a certain Academy in some things, by the carefulness of our watchfulness; and as our

author allows that "the connoisseur makes the artist," our pretensions may perhaps admit us a candidate. We have besides dined with the great Berchoux, the learned editor of the Almanac des Gourmands, "great let us call him, for he conquered us" in a fricandeau. De Boisgelin, the preux chevalier de la cuisine, the experienced artist, was too powerful in his practice for the "judgment of the connoisseur." Although we have not yet arrived at the honours of the spit, we have handled the gridiron, and scorched our face, and burnt our fingers in the service.

The youthful annotator, Apicius Coelius. jun. has found that in the language of his art, there has been as great a departure from the simplicity of our ancestors, as in the art of painting. "Such a farrago," says the erudite note writer" of unappropriate and unmeaning terms, many corrupted from the French, others disguised from the Italian, some misapplied from the German, while many are a disgrace to the English." Who would not think that Apicius was speaking of Macguilps, of Rembrandt paste, of Morland's cream, of fat pencils, of luscious touches, of clair-obscures, of carnations, of local, demi and middle tints, of chefs-d'oeuvres, of varnishing days, of chillings and of bringings out! "What," asks he, " can any person suppose to be the meaning of a shoulder of lamb in epigram, unless it were a poor dish for a pennyless poet? Aspect of fish, would appear calculated for an astrologer, and a shoulder of mutton surprised, designed for a sheep-stealer." A turkey in the shape of a foot-ball, a shoulder of mutton in the shape of a bee hive, an entrée of pigeons in the form of a spider, of the sun, of the moon, or of a frog, are given us as "unaccountably whimsical harlequinades of foreign kitchens." But what will he say to a painter who left his brushes to paint with his fingers, and when successful, left them to paint with his toes? of others painting with palette knives, and trowels, with and without, by

turns, every colour, with water, with oil, with gum, wich solution of chaout choucq, with wax, with every compound under heaven, with any vehicle but the true sort,' with arranging their colours on their pictures from the prism or the rain-bow, rather than from nature, or displaying their colours, so that the picture looked as well on its side, or on its head, as on its proper bottom? We could give a few pictorial harlequinades to match, but are restrained by the importance of our subject.

The man who despises cookery, has no seasoning in his soul, and deserves to be sent to the moon, where, as the truth-telling Munchausen says, the inhabitants open their left sides, and place in a month's provision at once, without losing time. Our literary Colossus, Johnson, doted upon it when it came in his way, though he did not make himself its slave. Shakspeare drew similies from it, and tells us that sleep is "great nature's second course," and from the Hebrides to Parnassus haggis and ambrosia have been concocted for the profit and amusement of the stomachs of Caledonians and immortals.

The same commentator, annotator, or noter, on the revived Apicius, gives us that singular receipt for roasting and eating a goose alive, from Wecker's Secrets of Nature, fol. Lon. 1660, which eluded the researches of that indefatigable antiquary Grose. We forbear to give it, out of regard to the feelings of our readers, and agree with the annotator that "we suppose Mr. Mizald stole the receipt from the kitchen of his infernal Majesty; probably it might have been one of the dishes the devil ordered when he invited Nero and Caligula to a feast. A. C. jun." Nero and Caligula to a feast, and the devil in the chair! Bravo, Apicius, jun. Robespierre certainly must have been the vice, and empty chairs left for Buonaparte and Cobbett. Our imaginations are excited, the scene appears to us, and

had we Somniator's pen, or Fuseli's pencil, a description or a picture should certainly appear.

Our printer cries, ohe! jam satis, the Number is overfull ; but daily experience proves that the subject is one of the greatest universality, and depends on knowledge, practice and good taste.

ART. IX. SOUND MIND; or, Contributions to the Natural History and Physiology of the Human Intellect. By JOHN HASLAM, M. D. late of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge: formerly President of the Royal Medical, Natural History, and Chemical Societies of Edinburgh. 8vo. LONDON, LONGMAN, and Co. 1819.

AFTER the young artist has completed his preparatory studies, whether as painter, sculptor or architect, and has began to paint, or carve, or design buildings on his own account, he should devote his leisure hours to the study of the human intellect. From the human form he should soar to the human mind, and from the animal functions should rise to the natural history of his own species, and investigate MAN, the proper study of the true philosopher.

Artists should leap over the mere mechanical boundaries of their art, should read, and learn, and inwardly reflect upon its philosophy: should study nature's mind, and from thence aspire to nature's God: should think, and speak, and write for themselves: should take up the pen from the selfcalled connoisseur, and by tearing off the trammels of liteterary tyranny, and throwing away their leading strings, stand up for themselves, and walk erect like men.

These reflections are occasioned by the maledictions of a class of men who call themselves critics, and buz and buz, and sting and buz about this immense metropolis,