! j 1 1 lil llliiillllillill lilii illlil III IHlii iilSi |||i iil!l!'!M^i]|M|l!;M|ij(l!l|iji!llipl L n I ir r'""!:, I f i I I I t t I lltMMM! I: ;»/ w. ili!i;i!^ H' / / iii' V.'- A.Kf^' THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ^L 13, THREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET, Jan. 1841. Mr COLBURN'S LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. QUEEN VICTORIA, FROM HER BIRTH TO HER BRIDAL. 2 vols, post 8vo, with Portraits, 2Is. bound. " These attractive volumes furnish not merely an adequate and authentic record of the pure and happy life of our young- Queen, but the only available one that has hitherto been given to the world. The charming letters of Miss Jane Porter, contained in the work, offer some of the most deljg-htf ul reminiscences of the infancy and childhood of Queen Victoria that have ever been made public." — Naval and Military Gazette. II. PRINCE ALBERT; AND THE HOUSE OF SAXONY. BY FREDERIC SHOBERL, ESQ. Second Edition, Revised, with Additions — By Autliority. In One Vol. post 8v(). with a Portrait of the Prince. 8s. 6d. hound. " The best and most authentic work on the subject of the prince-consort and his family." John Bull. III. LETTERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE COURT AND TIMES OF WILLIAM III. Addressed to the Duke of Shrewsbury, by Ja.mes Vernon, Esq., Secretary of State. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by G. P. R. James, Esq., Author of " Richelieu," &e. 3 vols. 8vo, with Portraits, 4"2s. bound. " These letters detail, in a familiar manner, somewhat after the fashion of Horace Walpole's celebrated epistles, all the important and interesting events which took place at the period in question, with a liberal infusion of Court gossip ; forming valuable historical illustrations of a reign of which clu: knowledge has hitherto been very limited."— G7oie. IV, DEDIC.VTED, BY PERMISSION, TO HER MAJESTY. LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND, FROM THE NORM.\N CONQUEST. WITH ANECDOTES OF THEIR COURTS. Now first published from Official Records and other Authentic Documents, private as well as public. By AGNES STRICKLAND. First Series, complete in 3 vols., price 10s. 6d. each, bound, eithir of which may lie had separately. " This interesting and well- written work, in which the severe truth of history takes almost the wildness of romance, will constitute a "valuable addition to our biographical literature."— Morning Herald. " This agreeable book may be considered a valuable contribution to historical knowledge. It contains a mass of every kind of matter of interest."— .it/trnmii.in. " The execution of this work is equal to the conception. Great pains have been taken to make it both interesting and valuable."— Li/era;-// Gazette. " This important work will form one of the most useful, agreeable, and essential addiHons to cur historical library- that we have iiad for many years."— .YoBai and Mililary Gazette. 2 Ml?. COLBURN'S NEW PUBLICATIONS. V. MR. BURKE'S HISTORY OF THE LANDED GENTRY ; A COMPANION TO THE PEERAGE AND BARONETAGE, COMPRISING ACCOUNTS OF ALL THE EMINENT FAMILIES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, And of upwards of 100,000 Individuals connected with them. Illustrated with the Armorial Bearings of each Family, Portraits, &c. Complete in 4 vols., price 18s. each; or in 16 parts, price 4s. 6d. each. This important work has been undertaken by Mr. Burke as a companion to his well-known and established " Dictionary of the Pceratjc and Baronctag-c of the United Kingdom," and upon a somewhat similar plan, in order that the two publications may embrace the whole body of the British Peerage, Baronetage, and Gentry, and may furnish such a mass of authentic inform- ation, in regard to all the principal Families in the Kingdom, as has never before been brought together. *,* Subscribers should give immediate orders to their respective Booksellers for the completion of their sets of this work, (a very small extra number of odd parts and volumes having been printed for this purpose) which will eventually become exceedingly scarce and valuable. ALSO, BY THE SAME AUTHOR, BURKE'S peerage" AND BARONETAGE With important Additions, beautifully printed on a new plan, in one large volume, with an Emblazoned Title-page, and upwards of 1500 Engravings of Arms, &c., price 38s. bound. Containing all the New Creations, and much other New Matter, the result of great research, and of Communications with the various Noble Families; forming the most complete, the most convenient, and the cheapest Work of the kind ever offered to the public. VII. BURKE'S EXTINCT, DORMANT, & SUSPENDED PEERAGES OF ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND SCOTLAND. A COMPANION TO ALL OTHER PEERAGES. New and Cheaper Edition, beautifully printed, in double columns, 1 vol. 8vo., with Emblazoned Title-page, &c., price 28s. Iiound. Tliis work, formed on a plan precisely similar to that of Mr. Burke's very popular Dictionary of the present Peerage and Baronetage, comprises those Peerages which have been suspended or extinguished since the Conquest, particularizing the members of each family in each generation, and bringing tbe lineage, in all possible cases, through either collaterals or females, down to existing liouses. It connects, in many instances, the new with the old nobility, and it will in all cases shew the cause which has influenced the revival of an extinct dignity in a new creation. It should be particularly noticed, that this new work appertains nearly as much to extant as to extinct persons of distinction ; for though dignities pass away, it rarely occurs that whole families do. HISTORICAL WOIIKS. VIII. QUEEN ELIZABETH AND HER TIMES. A SERIES OF ORIGINAL LETTERS. Selected from the Inedited Private Correspondence of the Lord Treasurer Burghley — the Great Earl of Leicester — the Secretaries Walsingham and Smith — Sir Christopher Hattoii — and most of the distinguished Persons of the Period, EDITED BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A., F.S.A. &c. DEDICATED, BY PERMISSION, TO HER MAJESTY. 2 vols. 8vo, with PoRTiiAiTS, price 32s. " One of the most interesting historical works that have issued from the press for some time. The editor's object has been to do for English history what Bishop Percy did for English poetry ; and by his judicious and instructive notes he has rendered his pages as interesting to the reader who may fly to them for amusement, as valuable to the iiifiuirer who may resort to them for in- formation." — Literary Gazette. IX. OLIVER CROMWELL AND HIS TIMES. ILLUSTRATED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS BETWEEN THE DISTINGUISHED MEN OF THE PERIOD. WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY DR. VAUGHAN, Author of " The Life of Wickliffe," &c. 2 vols. 8vo, with Portraits. Price 32s. " These volumes are liiglily important ; they give authentic information of one of the most complicated periods of EngUsh history, and exhibit the workings of some of the most powerful minds which ever guided or disturbed a state. They develop the general policy of the great leader of the Commonwesilth with a clearness and an interest of the most explicit and satisfactory nature." — New Monthly. X. THE LIFE OF SIR EDWARD COKE, LORD CHIEF JUSTICE IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. WITH MEMOIRS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES. By C. W.JOHNSON, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. Second and Cheaper Edition, 2 vols. 8vo, with Portraits. Price I6s. bound. " This Is a very valuable work, illustrating one of the most important periods in our liistory, and written In a candid spirit, whose judgment is based on materials collected with great in- dustry. Mr. Johnson has neglected nothing that could make his work complete ; and it does equal honour to his intelligence and his industry." — Literary Gazette. XI. DIARY OF THE REV. J. WARD, A.M., VICAR OF STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, Extending from 1G48 to 1678, now just published, from the original MS. in the Library of the Medical Society of London. EDITED BY CHARLES SEVERN, M.D. 1 vol. 8vo, price 1 2s. bound. "This Is one of the most ciuious and interesting works that for a long period has been pre- sented to the public. The Rev. J. Ward was all but contemporary with Shakspeare ; and part of the work before us relates to our poet, and throws much light upon disputed portions of his biography, and elucidates that relating to Ids death, of which hitherto we have been in ignorance. Dr. Severn has presented to the public, from these invaluable records, a selection of very singular interest." — Dispatch. 4 Ml?. COT.BURN'S NEW PUBLICATIONS. XII. THE COURT AND TLAIES OF QUEEN ANNE ; ILLUSTRATED IN THE MEMOIRS OF SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. BY MRS. A. T. THOMSON, Author of " Memoirs of Henry VIII.," " Life of Sir W. Raleigh," &c. 2 vols. 8vo, price 28s. bound. "The author of tTiese voluincs is so well known for her Memoirs of Henry VIII. and Life of Sir Walter Raleiph, that the readers of her new work wUl at once perceive in it the grace and ^icnnr of style which so distiiipruish her fnniicr otTorts. The political intrigues which so dis- tracted the Court of Queen Anne are all veiy ably set forth, ('ircuiiistances have called public attention to the.-c matters : so that we consider Mrs. Thomson's publication as peculiarly well timed. But even had there been no such.intrnduction to our notice, the delightful manner in which she narrates the varied incidents of the Life of one of the most illustrious ladies who have become celebrated in our liistorj', the anxiety to place the character of the Duchess of Marlborouph in a right light before our readers, would recommend the work to general accept- atice. It supplies a portion of history which was much wanted, and we are bound to say that Mrs. Thomson has executed her task with diligence, fidelity, and grace." — Age. XIII. THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH'S PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE COURT AND TIMES OF QUEEN ANNE. (Now (irst puljlishcd froin the Originals.) WITH HER SKETCHES AND OPINIONS OF HER CONTEMPORARIES Second edition. 2 vols. 8vo, with Portraits, price 28s. " This is a very delightful work. We have closed the volumes with a confirmed impression that in many of the highi st points of conduct, courage, and \mderstanding, the Duchess of Marlborough was the moat remarkable woman of her own or any other 's glory is dear, and be received as a standard work in all military circles." — Dublin Enenina Packet. " This work is likely to have a prodigious circulation. It contains the most complete, correct and authentic details of the eventful life of tliis exalted military nero, profound statesman, and patriotic politician." — Bath Herald. XVI. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE RT. HON. HENRY GRATTAN. BY HIS SON, HENRY GRATTAN, ESQ., M.P. In 2 vols. Svo, with Portrait, &:c., price 28s. " This truly valuable work will unquestionably form one of the most important and interesting additions to our biographical and historical literature that our own day has produced. The large body of private correspondence which is here brought to bear upon the early and private life of Grattan will be read with an eager and intense interest. Moreover, there is a fund of personal anecdote scattered through the voliunes, all of which is characteristic as well as new." — Xaval and Military Gazette. XVII. THE LIFE OF WASHINGTON, Commander-in-chief of the American Armies, and First Presidentof the United States. WITH HIS DIARIES AND SPEECHES, AND VARIOUS OTHER PAPERS. BY J A RED SPARKS. 2 vols. 8vo, with Portraits, price 28s. " The Life of Washington is now first given to the world from original sources. Every inform- ation and document of value and undoubted authenticity that remain in the recollections and cabinets of America, France, and England, have been procured or examined, and here used at vast trouble and expense, and at the sacrifice of many years of labour. In short, the life of Washington is now complete ; and every new addition to our knowledge of him only serves the more clearly to exhiliit liim as (in the resolution of Congress on his death) ' The man first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of liis fellow-citizens.' "Sun. XVIII. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH HOLT, GENERAL OF THE IRISH REBELS IN 1798. Edited from his Original MS. BY T. CROFTON CROKER, ESQ. 2 vols. Svo, with Portrait, price 28s. " We have read this work with great interest and satisfacHon. It is a most remarkable piece of autobiography, teeming vidth romantic incidents,."— Chronicle. 6 MR. COLBURN'S NEW PUBLICATIONS. XIX. AVOMAN AND HER MASTER; OR, THE niSTOIlY OF THE FEMALE SEX FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT DAY. BY LADY ]M O R G A N. 2 vols post 8vo. Price 21s. " Lady Morsran has Imparted to history the charm of romance. We liave read her series of rapid but brilliant and vi(jorous sketches with an interest which many a novel fails to excite." — W'ffklv Chruuiclf. " Lady Morgan has in these volumes undertaken to investigate the position v?hich woman should occupy in society. She has sought in the records of the past, guidance and direction for the future : slie has subjected the pages of history to a vigorous moral analysis, testing their facts with the skill of a critic, and deducing results with the wisdom of a philosopher." — Athena:um. XX. LIFE AND LETTERS OF BEETHOVEN. BY HIS FRIEND. A. SCHINDLEIl. Edited, with Notes, &:c., by IGNACE MOSCHELLES, 2 vols, with Portrait, &c., 2 Is. bound. XXI. MEMOIRS AND LETTERS OF MADAME MALIBRAN, WITH NOTICES OF THE PROGRESS OF THE MUSICAL DRAMA IN ENGLAND. Second and Clieaper Edition, 2 vols, post 8vo, with Portrait, 16s. bound. " These memoirs are full of interesting details, much of wliich is entirely new to the public, and of a nature to give new ideas and impressions of the extraordinary woman to whom they relate. We could fill several columns very pleasantly vinth those singular personal anecdotes and traits with which these volumes are filled ; but extracts are unnecessary, as the book will be universally read. In addition to the chief memoir, there is a large body of miscellaneous anecdote, and a selection of Malibran's Letters, all singularly characteristic and amusing." — Saval and Military Gazette. XXII. THE DUCHESS OF ST. ALBANS' MEMOIRS. Third and Cheaper Edition, in 2 vols, witli Portraits, &c., price 16s. bound. " A life of this very extraordinary woman, whose career was so plethoric of good fortune, and whf)sc singular destiny placed her in so many and so varied situations, in which persons of every rank in life were involved, has at length been written with candour and fidelity. It would be next to impossible for us to give even an analysis of volun\es so full of interest ; every page teems with proofs of the late Duchess' kind-heartedness and good sense, while the numerous anecdotes, thickly interspersed, at once attract ai\d instruct. The volumes are written with that taste and good feeling, which must command general approval, and will obtain the patronage, not only of those intcre->ted in theatrical matters, but of those who are watchers of the great stage of the world." — Age. XXIII. THE LIFE, CORRESPONDENCE, AND POSTHUMOUS WRITINGS of M. G. LEWIS. Author of" The Monk," " Casti.e Spectre," &c. " Hail \ wonder-working Lewis." — BvkOm. 2 vols. 8vo, with Portrait, &c., price 28s. bound. " The Life of the great magician of horrors, wliose genius partook of the very essence of German ' wonder-working' and mysterious creation — the Life of Monk Lewis, who knew, withal, every one of the choice H|iirits of his time, affords a most tem))ting subject. Crammed full of anecdote aa these volumes are— theatrical, jiolitical, and literary — there is not a dull page throughout. 'Ilic great body of the work has relation to theatrical matters, and gives us some capital stories about the most prominent members of the histrionic profession of both sexes ; but the editor ha-* introduced so much matter rif a different kind— has i)resentcd us with so many varieties of wit and tiiimour — that the work is as free from the fault of monotony as any we have read." — Court Journal. NAVAL AND MILITARY WORKS. XXIV. NARRATIVE of the WAR in AFFGHANISTAN. BY CAPTAIN HENRY HAVELOCK, In 2 vols, post 8vo, price 21s. bound, witli a complete map of the seat of war. XXV. LIFE AXD CORRESPONDENCE OF ADMIRAL EARL ST. VINCENT. BY CAPTAIN BRENTON, R.N. Author of " The Naval History of Great Britain," &c. 2 vols. 8vo, 28s. " To the several valuable records of the achievements and characteristics of our great heroes which late years have produced, these excellent voliunes are now to be added. They will claim a permanent place in the splendid collection, as worthy to rank in design and execution with any work of the cla^s." — Court Journal. XXVI. THE STANDARD NAVAL HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN, BROUGHT DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME. BY CAPTAIN EDWARD PELHAM BRENTON, R.N. 2 thick vols. 8vo, price 3ls. 6d.bd., comprising nearly 1400 closely-printed pages, with numerous PORTRAITS OF DISTINGUISHED OFFICERS, Plans, &c. " This important work has long been an esteemed chronicle of the triumphant exploits of the British Navy, but its value is much further enhanced in this edition by the history being con- tinued to the present time by the gallant author, who, in addition to his long experience of fifty years' scivice, has also been facilitated in the progress of his work by the assistance of most of the eminent men whose actions he narrates." — Globe, XXVII. THE MARINE OFFICER. BY SIR ROBERT STEELE, KNT., K.C.S., ETC. In 2 vols, post 8vo, with Portrait. Price 21s. " Our ' Marine Officer' is a very pleasant, lively, and intelligent fellow ; and we have accordingly grreat pleasiae in directing the attention of our readers to his autobiography. In the commence- ment of the work the writer gives an account of his birth, parentage, education, and first entry into military life, which is admirably written, reminding us often of some of the best parts of ' Peter Simple ;' but. Sir Robert Steele does not confine himself to his own adventures, he touches, from time to time, on mostof the leading events of the late war — fighting many naval battles over again. For marine officers Sir Robert's book will have peculiar attractions, as it records many anecdotes of the heroism and fidelity of the corps wliich would not discredit the palmiest era of Roman valour." — United Service Gazette. XXVIII. CAPT. D. H. O'BRIEN'S ADVENTURES DURING THE LATE WAR. COMPRISING A NARRATIVE OF SHIPWRECK, CAPTIVITY, ESCAPES FROM FRENCH PRISONS, &C., FROM 1S04 TO 1827- In 2 vols. 8vo, with Illustrations, 28s. bound. " This is a work from the pen of a very distingruished officer, who has now added a literary fame to his professional reputation. Capt. O'Brien's adventures are numerous and extraorduiary, and he narrates them in an unostentatious manly manner, and in a style, simple, natural, and eflfective. Every page bears the strongest features of truth and nature ; so much so, that the reader makes the case his own, aud vividly enters into all the scenes of danger and noble daring with wliich the work abounds."— iJi'.'s/>a drawing the most curious comparisons and analogies." — Globe. LXI. LORD BROUGHAM'S OPINIONS ox POLrncs, theology, law, science, literature, etc. WITH A MEMOIR OF HIS LORDSHIP'S MFE. One very thick and closely-printed volume, price 12s. bound. " TTic design of this volume is to afford a collective view of his Lordship's opinions and practical olyerts. It embodies not only the most brilliant passages from his celebrated speeches and writings, but alsr) unfolds to the reader the gradual development of his mind on those great ques- tions in iwjlitics, hterature, and science, in which learned men of all countries and all ages must ever take a lively interest. To the selections is prefixed a prefatory memoir, which will be found more complete, accurate, and elaborate, than any that has hitherto appeared, containing parti- cularh of his l^)rd'hip's early, and al.so of his more advanced, life, with a philosophical analysis of hiit mind and writings." "This volume is calculated to be of infinite service, by teaching its readers to think, and think justly, on all the great political questions of the day." — Sun. LXII. THE AMERICAN IN PARIS; OB, SKETCHES OF THE NEW INSTITUTIONS, THE EMEELLISHMr.NTS, THE hOCIETV, THE ECCENTRIC CHARACTERS, THE WOMEN, THE PRESS, THE LITERATURE, ETC., OF PARIS. 2 vols, post 8vo, price IBs. " We cordially recommfnd this hook to our readers as by very far the best, because incom- parably the most amusing as well as infonning. Guide to Paris that we are acquainted with in the Eng\iah language, or indeed in any other." — Naval and Military Gazette. POETICAL WORKS, &c. 15 I.XIII. SONGS AND BALLADS. WRITTEN AND BET TO MUSIC BY HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT, & PRINCE ERNEST. Translated from the German, by G. F. Richardson, Esq. DEDICATED, BY PERMISSION, TO H.Il.II. THE DUCHESS OF KENT. Imperial 4to, containing Fourteen Songs, and Forty-two Pages of Music, with a beautifully engraved Portrait of Prince Albert, price 12s. LIST OK THE SONGS. THE WORDS IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN. 1 . Farewell to Home. 2. To my Brother. 3. Italian Son^. 4. The Hark dashes wildly. 5. The Wandering Harper. 6. Sleep, O Sleep. 7. Say, sleepest thou, Love ? 8. To an absent Friend. g. Yonder, thou shalt tind the blessing. 10. All silent were the foun- tains. 1 1 . Come, dearest, come. 12. How sweet this hour of pure devotion. 13. As the hark dashes wildly. 14. The star of splendour. LXIV. THE DREAM ; AND OTHER POEMS. BY THE HON. MRS. NORTON. Second Edition, with Additions. In 1 vol., with Fine Portrait of the Authoress, after a Drawing by E. Landseer, R.A., price 10s. 6d. bound, *' A very beautiful poem. This lady is the Byrou of our modem poetesses." — Quarterly Review. LXV. POPULAR SONGS OF IRELAND. Collected and Edited, with Introductions and Notes, by T. CROFTON CROKER, ESQ. 1 vol. with Illustrations, price 10s. 6d. bound. "A volume of sin^ar interest and curiosity. It is even more than this,— it Is a publication of real value, as illustrative of the past and present condition, both mental and moral, of the most singular people in the world. At the same time, it is, as a collection of l>Tical compositions, full of the graces and beauty of wliich that class of poetry is so eminently su.sceptible."— Alalia/ and Military Gazette. LXVI. THE ROSE-FANCIER'S MANUAL. BY MRS. CHARLES GORE. New and cheaper edition, one elegant vol., price 6s. bound. CONTENTS : Geography of Roses— Culture of Roses— Glossology of Roses— Hybridity— Importance of Specific Characters— Comparison of Specific Characters— On Species— Distinction of Species and Variety — BibUography of the Rose— Pharmacopceia of Roses— Monography of the Rose, comprising notices of 2500 Varieties— Last of the Species admitted by Botanists, &c. &c. "All the lovers of flowers, and especially the fairer portion of our readers, ought forthwith to have this elegant volume in their possession."— Sura. LXVII. THE ART OF NEEDLEWORK, FROM THE EARLIEST AGES. With Notices of the Ancient Historical Tapestries. EDITED BY THE RIGHT HON. THE COUNTESS OF WILTON. Second edition, revised, in 1 vol. post 6vo, 10s. 6d. bound. " An admirable volume. It should be possessed by every lady."— Times. "A charming volume. We congratulate our fair countrywomen on this valuable addition to theur hhraries."— Herald. IG MR. COLBURN'S NEW PUBLICATIONS. LXVIII. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MICHAEL ARMSTRONG, THE FACTORY BOY. BY MRS. TROLLOPE. Now complete in 1 Vol. 8vo., price l'2s. bound, or in 12 Parts at Is. each, printed and embellished uniformly with " Nicholas Nickleby," &c. " We are cxceodiiisly plad that Mrs. Trollope has devoted the energies of her powerful and fertile mind to the production of tliis at once striking, amusing, and useful worli. Without any desire to depreciate the value of similar productions, we cannot but consider this as infinitely more valuable tliaii any which we have yet seen." — Metropolitan Conservative Journal. NOW IN COURSE OF PUBLICATION, IN OCCASIONAL VOLUMES, PRICE O.VLY 6S. EACH BOUND, Printed uniformly witli Byron and Scott, and beautifully embellished wilii the Portraits of the Autiiors, and other Engravings, by the Findens and other eminent Artists. COLBURN'S STANDARD NOVELISTS, A SELECT COLLECTION OF 5rte 'bc^t SlJSJorfts of fiction THE MOST DISTINGUISHED ENGLISH WRITERS, WHICH CANNOT BE r-ROCURED IN ANY OTHER COLLECTION. The Proprietor ol'tlie Series hero announced having had the good fortune to puljlish a very large proportion of the most masterly modern works of Fiction — such as have become incorporated with tlie literature of tiie country, — is obviously y)laced in the most favourable position for an undertaking of this nature ; and he has determined that no composition of inferior and ephemeral character shall be admitted into the collection ; but that those works alone w hich have received the stamp of unequivocal public approbation, and which may be read from time to time witli still recurring pleasure and profit, shall constitute the Series. Works 'whicb bave already appeared in tbe above Collection. 61K E. L. llLLWl.It S I'l LHAM 8in E. L. bulwer's disowned SIR E. L. bi;lwi:k's deveueux MJl. WARDS TREMAINE MR. smith's BBAMBLETYE HOUSE M.i. smith's '/ILLAII MR. I.ISTHRS OKAMiY LADY morgan's o'dONNEL LADY morgan's FLORENCE MACAKTHY " ' Cr>!bum's Modern Novelists' present a series of those works of fiction that have most tended, with the writings of Sir Walter Scotf, tf) elevate this description of literature. This publication Iire.Hcnt-s a concentration of imag'inativc genius. " — (Jlohe. • ,• Due notice will be given of the future appearance of each new volume of this work. CAl'T. MAKRYAT S FRANK MILDMAY MR. hook's SAYINGS AND DOINGS (First Seriei;) MR. hook's sayings AND DOINGS (Second Series) MR. hook's SAYINGS AND DOINGS (Third Series) MR. James's richelieu MR. GLEIG's CHELSEA PENSIONERS AGENTS FOR SCOTLAND : .MESSRS. BELL AND BDADFUTE, EDINBURGH. AGENT FOR IRELAND : MR. JOHN CUM.MING, DUBLIN. T. C. Savill, Printer, 107, St. Margin's Lane. THE BOOK WITHOUT A NAME. VOL. I. Also, Just Published, WOMAN AND HER MASTER; or, the history of the female sex from the earliest period to the present day. By lady morgan. 2 vols, post 8vo. price 21s. " Lady Morgan has imparted to history the charm of romance. We have read her series of rapid but brilliant and vigorous sketches with an interest which many a novel fails to excite." — Weekly Chronicle. " Lady Morgan has in these volumes undertaken to investigate the position which woman should occupy in society. She has sought, in the records of the past, guidance and direction for the future ; she has subjected the pages of history to a vigorous moral analysis, testing their facts with the skill of a critic, and deducing results with the wisdom of a philosopher." — Atheneeum. •^^r-v- v.^-' ^/$2^. X, %trr9,yt^> r THE BOOK WITHOUT A NAME.. BY SIR T. CHARLES AND LADY MORGAN. Unfinished things, one knows not what to call, Their generation's so equivocal. Pope. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDOi^ : HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GRE.\T MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1841. LONDON: P. PHf nKRr, JIN., 51, RUPERT STHF.ET.-HAVMARKET, PRINTER TO H. R. H. PHINf E ALBERT. ADVERTISEMENT. The reason for not giving a name tp the follow- ing papers, is simply that their authors had no name to give. The golden age of literature, when titles for books were "plenty as blackberries," when publications were few, readers many, and authors (in the Horatian phrase) were things to point the finger at — that golden age is passed and o-one. Now, every one writes, few have leisure to read ; and an unpreoccupied title is more difficult to be met with, than the industry which goes to write a volume, or the enterprize that undertakes to publish it. This difficulty will be more readily acknow- ledged, when a further statement is made, that the present venture is, for the most part, a mere funding of literary exchequer bills, a gathering into the fold, of certain stray sketches, some of which have already appeared in different leading periodicals of the last ten or fifteen years. Such re-publications are a prevailing fashion of the day, (to which, by the b3'e, we are indebted for much 1301323 VI ADVERTISEMENT. pleasant reading, that otherwise would have been " in the great bosom of oblivion buried") ; and even while these pages were passing through the press, more than one appropriate title, under consi- deration, had been seized on by others, who, in thus " filching from us our good name," had so far " made us poor indeed," that they reduced us to the necessity of preferring no name at all, to a bad one. The original articles which have been added to the collection, (owing to the continued illness, for many months, of one of the authors,) have been taken, rather than selected from a portfolio, where many such "unfinished things" have from time to time been deposited, and all but forgotten. Books like the present were allowed, in former days, to find sanctuary in the parlour window-seat, then the great receptacle for whatever, in litera- ture, might be idly taken up, and as carelessly dropped. At present, they may aspire to become " bench fellows" with that large class of miscella- neous compositions, the albums, annuals, books of beauty, and beautiful books ; and if got up " to match," may make their way to the drawing-room table, along with other elegantly-bound volumes, "to be had of all the booksellers" and venders of knick-knacks in the kingdom. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. BY LADY MORGAN. PAGE Le Cordon Bleu . . . . . . 16 Milton's House ...... 125 St. Alban's Abbey, No. 1 . 138 No. 2. 151 Memoirs of the Macaw of a Lady of Quality . 257 BY SIR T. C. MORGAN. The Public ...... 1 A First Lesson in Reading 51 The Absurdities of Men of Merit 70 An Essay on Coals 89 Curiosity 106 Rural Pleasures . 167 A Defence of Punning . 184 The Pleasures of Hearing . 202 The English Malady . . 223 Liberality . 238 Luxuries and Necessaries . 317 Memoir of Dr. Botherum . 333 THE PUBLIC. "Tout le monde meprise les harangeres; cependant, qui oseroit risquer de les off'enser, en traversant la Halle?" Champfort. In the olden times, when the public was rarely addressed, save from a tub, a ladder, or the foot- lights of the stage, it was a modest, well-behaved body corporate, as heart could desire. Settmg aside an occasional lark, a sportive riot about a jew-bill, or the innocent burning of a Popish chapel, ad ma- jorem Dei gloriam, it kept the peace, as a discreet public should do. Since, however, it has become a power, and is consulted by cabinets and congresses, it has grown as capricious and tyrannical as other irresponsible autocrats. Puffed up with daily of- ferings of mouth-honour, administered by all who live by its patronage (from the Lord Chancellor on his woolsack, to Mr. Professor Warren, behind his VOL. I. B 2 THE PUBLIC. dingy counter, inclusive), there is nothing on earth, of which its Dis aqua potestas does not think itself capable. " The public," says Dumont, " is a tribunal worth more than all the others put together ;" and the prevalence of this opinion probably is the reason why that body is constituted the great referee of injured innocents. Does an actress quarrel with her part, or her partner? Is a Prima Donna dis- satisfied that the manager is not her devoted ad- mirer ? She straightway files her bill before the public, in the columns of the daily press. Does an author think himself regularly " cut up" by a hostile reviewer, he forthwith cites him to answer interrogatories before the same authority. Is a gentleman's nose pulled, or his coat beaten " after the Connaught fashion," * out comes his letter to the public, with " a statement of facts ;" or, if a common swindler is roughly handled by the inqui- sitors of Bow Street, he intreats the public to sus- pend its judgment till the day of trial. But, as if this wore not enough, there is no end of the villanous cajoleries, in which such appeals are ordinarily enveloped. The commonest vender of the commonest article crams his advertisements with fulsome epithets, in all the hyperbole of ori- ental exaggeration. It is, forsooth, a humane public — a charitable public — a discriminating pub- lic (God bless the mark !) — and, above every thing, * Id est, on the person of its owner. THE PUBLIC. 3 a religious public ; while the poor dupe, taking it all for granted, gives itself credit for every virtue under the sun, and quemlibet occidit populaiiler, hunts any man to the death, who presumes to think for himself, and bows not the knee before its self- arrogated infallibihty. That a writer of so logical a turn of mind as Dumont should liave ranked public opinion above all other tribunals, is perfectly inexplicable. " Though susceptible of error," he continues, " this tribunal is incorruptible. It tends perpetually to instruct itself; and it contains all the wisdom and justice of the nation."" The compliment, to be sure, is but equivocal ; and perhaps it was intended merely as a quaint and sly bit of irony. The public may surely come by its decisions more rapidly than the Court of Chancery, and yet not be very expeditious : it may be governed more closely by common sense than our courts of law, and yet not be remarkably intel- ligible ; it may act with more wisdom than " the great unpaid," without being justly set down for a conjuror. Then, as for its incorruptibility, is it not the same public, which the strongest laws against parliamentary corruption cannot bind ? and for whose benefit insolvent bills are framed with meshes that would let slip a whale ? What, if a direct bribery of the public be not as easy, as it was in ancient Rome, when corn was distributed and games celebrated to purchase the voices of the people, ingenuity finds a thousand by-ways for u 2 4 THE PUBLIC. arriving at the same end. Public opinion is noto- riously self-interested. The very imputed excel- lence of its decisions rests on the supposition, that the sum of individual interests constitutes the com- mon good ; and that self-seeking, consequently, must be the safest basis, on which a judgment can stand. Whatever parade parliamentary orators may make of the wisdom and justice of their pro- posed measures, they always take care to conclude with a show of something to be made, or saved, by the operation. In the same spirit, and with equal knowledge of the world, advertising trades- men lay less stress on the beauty or goodness of their wares, than on their cheapness ; and they head their paragraphs, in well-leaded capitals, " full twenty ^;er cent, under prime cost." On the score of self-instruction, it must be allowed that the public does possess a certain tendency, or velleity rather, to learn : but it is 'at/To/xa6>)? t'e Kol 'o-vJ/i^aSri?, that is to say, it comes at a truth when every body knows it, and not be- fore : videlicet, some century, or so, after the wise have commenced beating the facts into its silly noddle, and have been fined, imprisoned, spit upon, and reviled for their pains. Hitherto, the public has very closely resembled that converted Catholic gentleman, who " renounced the errors of Popery, and embraced those of the Protestant church," ex- changing merely one set of prejudices for another; or if haply, at long intervals, it has enjoyed a lucid moment, the temporary gleam of light has been THE PUBLIC. 5 followed by a deeper plunge into the pristine dark- ness. As yet, the public has very constantly been doomed to follow in the career of intelligence, to sit below the salt at the table of knowledge, and to feed on the scraps and orts of philosophy, which the more acute portion of mankind abandon, as no longer wholesome and digestible. Then for the matter of " wisdom and justice," the word " Public" is but the representative of a congregation, including all the fools and knaves of the community — a large dilution of the few persons whose opinion a man of sense would take on the boiling of a potato. How, then, can an accumu- lation of their several absurdities and rogueries be converted into wisdom and justice ? All the first judgments of the public, indeed, are prejudices, adopted on the ipse dixit of some fashionable au- thority ; and, if not always false, they are com- monly used sophistically, to gloss over some political wrong ; while a correction of the error lags haltingly behind, till the mischief is completed and rendered irrevocable. " Interdum vulgus rectum v'ldet^^ says Horace, and it was a large admission from one so knowing ; but the worst of it is, that the vulgar are not con- fined to a single grad'^ of society. Vulgar errors are to be found prevailing in the first, as well as the lowest ranks •, and they are too often cruel, as they are false. Such, for example, is that vulgarest of the vulgar — the judging men and measures by 6 THE PUBLIC. the event.* Such, too, are the placing criminality in punishment, and identifying virtue with stars and garters. It is another point of vulgar wisdom, that public documents, like gift horses, must not be looked in the mouth ; nor any nonsense be questioned, that is delivered ex cathedra. To doubt that a wig is wisdom, a red coat courage, or a bar-gown wit, woidd consign the sceptic to general reprobation : but to deny that a well-stocked purse is a receipt in full for every virtue, would incur the risk of in- terdiction ab igne et aqua. The judgments of the public being thus lightly formed, it is not surprising that its favourites should be as lightly taken up and let down again. VVliere now is the popularity of Dr. Johnson ? where that of George the Third, " the good old king" ? Blucher, if he were alive, might walk the streets unnoticed ; and the sun of Brodum's Balm of Gilead is outshone by the superior brightness of Mr. Morrison's pills. Can that public, moreover, be really wise, which is so easily led by the ears ? Eloquence is its de- light ; and experience in vain declares that " fine words butter no parsnips." Even foul words pos- sess an unctuous quality, which causes things to be * Niillus est turn sapiens, mitis, et formosus, Tam prudens virtutihiis, caeteris fumosus, Qiiin stultiis rcpulabitur, el satis dispectus. Si Fortiina prosperos evertat effectus. These verses are attributed to King Eldvvard the Second. THE PUBLIC. 7 swallowed, of much harder digestion than that stringy esculent. The time is not so far distant, when, to carry the worst measures, nothing more was necessary than an energetic appeal to national antipatliies, a rhodomontade of " British valour," or " good old English feeling." And though a bitter experience acting on men's pockets (the shortest cut to their brains) may have since dis- credited these particular watchwords of party, uno avulso non deficit alter. The words indeed are changed, but the tune continues the same : the old formulae may have fallen into disuse, but newer and more popular claptraps have inherited their vogue — et voila tout. If we estimate the opinion of the public by its overt acts, all history teems with traits, the reverse of advantageous. Was it not public opinion that cast Manlius from his rock, for striving to protect the people against a tyrannical oligarchy ? Was it not public opinion which became tired of hearing Aristides for ever called the just — that adminis- tered the cicuta to Socrates — or (to come nearer to our own times) that shut Gilbert Wakefield in a prison, and burned Priestley's house over his head, because they lifted their voices against a mad and unprincipled war ? Cobbett, who must have known the public to a nicety, having exploited its credulity through the greater part of a long life, first by humouring the loyalty and altarity of the times, and afterwards by abusing kings, ministers, and ** the old woman of Threadneedle Street," never 8 THE PUBLIC. made a better hit, than in his sarcastic calling us a thinking people — the people, whose penal code is written in blood, a thinking people ! — the eaters of taxed bread a thinking people ! ! It shows little power of thought to found morality upon station, and to take philosophy from party reviews — to bite at every commercial bubble, to uphold every esta- blished abuse, simply because it is established, or to take alarm, whenever the political shepherds amuse themselves with crying wolf in broad daylight. It may perhaps be objected, on the strength of the change in watchwords, already noticed, that the errors of the public are not immortal, and that opinion is ever on the advance. True : we are old enough to have outlived many well-conditioned absurdities; and that, too, in spite of the strongest efforts to sustain them. But what are these among so many ? Quid te exempta jiivat spiiiis e pluribus una / Are no new sophisms rising into vogue ? Are no efforts making and favourably received, to revive such as are defunct, or to bolster such as are faUing to ruin ? Who shall say that humbug does not fully maintain its ancient rule, or that plausibility has lost any of its prescriptive right to pass for reality ? Society seems capable of bearing only a certain quantity of truth at a time ; and those who strive to overdose their contemporaries, do little more than hurry them prematurely into some new absurdity. THE PUBLIC. 9 If the public, then, be such an hospital of in- curables, why, it will be asked, set about curing them ? The question is a smart question, but rather hastily put. Who said that any such design was on foot, or that the Essays now offered for pe- rusal have any such arriere-pensee 9 Books in this age (and it is their distinctive merit) are written, as Peter Pindar's razors were made — to sell ; and the author who risks his peace of mind in the vain attempt to make mankind either wiser or happier than they choose to be, is a mere philanthropic Quixote. It is all very well to talk of these matters, en these generate, and, in a half-jesting way, to no- tice absurdities, which each reader may lay to the account of his neighbours ; but to sit down dog- gedly to prove yourself more knowing than the mass of mankind, and to disturb social order, by making folly discontented, or roguery distrustful, is a sort of Curtius-like proceeding, at which the very children would scoff. Never was it more necessary than now to chatter with the apes,* and howl with the wolves. Think with the wise, if you can ; but keep your thoughts to yourself, if you don't like being stoned. Let your opinions be con- cealed even from the brother of your love, and the wife of your bosom. But, in mixed societies, fail not also to add a strong touch of the hypocrite, to boot, if you would not be the butt of every paltry B 5 10 THE PUBLIC. knave, who desires to derive profit or pleasure from gibbeting all those who " wear their hearts upon their sleeves for (the public) daws to peck at." In publishing, an author of course desires to be read. But to be read, he must humour the mass of purchasers, and not simply consult the select few. Hannah Glass is a much better thumbed author than Babbage or Bentham ; and Sir Walter himself would have been infinitely less popular than he is, had he set up as a teacher or reformer of mankind. He who would see his volume on every club-table, the ornament of every boudoir, must flatter and encourage every fashionable vice and reigning folly ; must support every interest on earth but that of mankind. Let such a man write religious novels, record the experiences of hysterical spin- sters, and celebrate the conversions of bedlamites, or the election of rope-sanctified sinners ; but let him not touch the sacred landmarks of gothic ig- norance, nor lift the veil through which his great great grandfather viewed law, physic, divinity, and the nature of things. If possible, let him indeed make it a rule in writing to confine himself to those " airy nothings" qui ne tirent pas a consequence. Twaddle is your only wear ; and common-place, which disturbs no one's complacency, has the readiest market. Among all the favourites of our times, Byron was perhaps the only original thinker, and the excep- tion admirably proves the rule. Such are the principles which steer an author safely over the rocks of criticism ; and the reader THE PUBLIC. 11 is earnestly requested to believe that by them the pages here offered to his notice will be squared. It is a monstrous abuse which has crept into fashion among readers of a certain class, " qui entendent finesse, et qui rientendent pas raison," to be discontented with what lies on the surface of the page, and to exert a perverse ingenuity in prying into the author's concealed doctrines ; and that, too, for the worst purposes of malice and detrac- tion. A true and faithful reader will take an author on his word, and will not indulge in any superfine interpretations ; but even when he can- not seize the drift of an argument, will rather sus- pect his author of trifling than of mischief. It is hard, indeed, because a man deals in manuscript, if he may not sometimes be simple without deceit, or silly without malice. Against such nasuti homines as these, it is as well, once for all, to enter a protest ; and to request all who amuse themselves with fish- ing for under-currents of meaning, and in hunting for mares'" nests, if they must poach on this manor, at least to remember that the mischief is of their own making. " Non me ne fate autore, io non vo' guai." If Socrates, as the great Frederick said, preferred the poison cup to holding his tongue, that is no precedent for other people. No imputations, there- fore, of felonious wisdom, if you please, good gen- tlemen : stick to the simplicity of the text, and keep your quibbles for a better occasion. On the other hand, there is a class of persons 12 THE PUBLIC. mightily given to the enthusiastic, by their own chimney-corners — great admirers of public devo- tion in others — flaming patriots when it costs nothing ; but deplorably complaisant when there is any thing to be got by subserviency. These will open upon us like a pack of foxhounds, with an out- cry about moral cowardice, dereliction of duty, base compromise of principle, and all that sort of thing. According to these persons, if the world goes wrong, the fault is with its instructors. The fanatic and persecuting public are honest in their cruelty and blindness. They know no better ; and if writers will but teach them, they will be equally eager to defend the right. If society has grown up from its nonage, to the point of civilization at which it stands, there can be no reason wliy it may not be still further corrected. The people come into the market of knowledge and lay down their pence freely for such shreds and patches of truth as their schoolmasters are willing to afford them for their money. Instead of grumbling, then, at the public, of which you yourself are but a com- ponent atom, open your budget manfully, take out a handful of the truest truths, and boldly fling it in the face of mankind. Yes, and be held up to ridi- cule as the scapegoat of honesty ; to be kicked, and cuffed, and disfranchised, and disqualified for oneV pains. It is no such pleasure to forfeit the sympathies of society. Worth, itself, may be " but a cliarter, " To be mankind's distinguished martyr;" THE PUBLIC. 13 and ^' vitam impendere vero" is certainly a very dignified and respectable position ; but not " all alone, Proudy" — not to no earthly purpose. There can be no manner of doubt, that if all who hold sound doctrines would manfully own them, and would " keep together in their chivalry" as steadily as the wilful teachers of error, they are numerous enough to win public opinion, and force the per- verse to respect their liberty of thought and speech. It is certain that the partizans of moral truth betray their cause ten times a day, not only by an unworthy timidity which prevents them from openly displaying it, but what is infinitely more infa- mous, by joining in the outcry against honester and bolder men. En attendant, however, it is rather too much to expect from an individual that he should risk his eyes and his cheeks, in a solitary and un- aided effort to " bell the cat." A popular writer has well observed, that " though those coarse correctors of honesty, the gibbet and the stake, are gone out of fashion, yet the ingenuity of power has invented other methods of inforcing silence or belief, not quite so effectual, but more painful to the mind of the sufferer." The chain may be broken and the thumbscrew may rest in the cabinets of the curious, but influ- ence and detraction are instruments of torture no less effectual ; and these, thanks to the slavish readiness of the masses to compromise their own interests, and to join in the cry against those whom they ought to protect, are still in the fullest acti- 14 THE PUBLIC. vity. Like the Irishman in the water, they will be drowned, and nobody shall help them. The utmost mercy to be expected at their hands by the man who would do violence to this amiable propensity, and would enlighten the public, whether it will or no, is to be shut up in Bedlam, with the other catego- ries of lunatics, who are insane in a different way from those of their fellow-sufferers, who are per- mitted to go at large. Once more, therefore, and once for all, " notice is hereby given" that these volumes are volumes in the queen's peace, volumes with no offence in their mouths ; that they are desirous of enjoying their own sense or nonsense, without let or molestation to the sense or nonsense of the world at large. Those who delight to imagine that " les vessies sont des lanternes" are welcome to their whim, provided they will leave other folks alone, and not cry haro against all whom in their wantonness they may suspect of being suspicious. Nay, if, in spite of such protestations, some rea- sons in behalf of forbidden truths should by accident have crept into these innocent pages, such reasons are at once admitted to be of no avail, against any lawful or customary authority to the contrary. Those in possession are hereby acknowledged to have a plenary right to make fair and foul weather at their pleasure, and to place the heart on which- ever side of the body it seems good to them. Whenever it is asserted that such a tiling " must be," that " such a consequence flows from such and THE PUBLIC. 15 such undisputed premises/* this is intended as a simple declaration of the historical fact, that such is the case with respect to the understandings of those who know no better — of those obstinately freethinking logicians, who will have a will of their own. It is not pretended that such consequences are theologically true ; nor is it meant to force any to believe the evidence of their own senses, if their instincts or their interests (which are often one and the same) happen to point another way. 16 LE CORDON BLEU. LE CORDON BLEU.* From an unpublished work. " La <»astrouomie n'est autre chose que la reflexion qui apprecie, appliquee a la science qui ameliore." We live in awful times ! By we, I mean we women. Power has departed from us, passions are things over which we no longer have control, love has become a calculation, matrimony a spec, and friendship (that peculiar attribute of our sex) *' but a name." Bright eyes now shine in vain, • "Cordon bleu," an honorary distinction conferred on the first class of female cooks in Paris, either in allusion to their blue aprons, or to the order, whose blue ribbon was so long considered as the adequate recompense of all the highest merit in the highest classes. The Fermicr General who built the palace of the Bourbon Klysee, became not more ce- lebrated for his exquisite dinners, than for tiie moral courage with which he attributed their excellence to his female cook, Marie, when such a chef was scarcely known in the French kitclien ; for when Marie served up a " jjolil diner de- lirant" she was " called for " like other prima-donnas, and her health drank by the style of " Le cordon bleu." LE CORDON BLEU. 17 when opposed to the sparkle of a cigar ; the pret- tiest ancle may withdraw itself within the cumbrous comforts of a trailing petticoat, for it is powerless against breasts protected by egotism or a Peter- sham. Cinderella's slipper might be sent round from club to club, without increasing the throb of a single heart, even in " the guards and Crock- ford's." Neither lajeune France, nor the dandyism of England could now furnish a man to extatise over a corsage with St. Preux, or to envy with Waller the pressure of a zone : though Give me but wliat tluit girdle bound. Take all the rest the world goes round, might still be applied, in the ardor of jockeyism, to the girth of the favourite of the field, it never would apostrophize the cincture that marks the symmetry, " fine by degrees, and elegantly less," of the best dressed subject of Victorine or Carson. The days when the rape of the lock agitated society to its centre, are now like the days beyond the flood ; and the times when women were all charming, and men all charmed, are as the nights of Arabian fiction. Women of those times — where lay your secret? My own opinion is, that it lay in the kitchen ! "Ma belle," said the gallant Henri IV. to one of Marie de Medici's maids of honor, — " quel est le chemin a voire caur ? Par Veglise^ Sire .'" was the prompt and piquant reply : but had those fe- male Sommit^s of the reign of his grandson, the Maintenons, the Contis, and the Soubises been in- terrogated before a star-chamber of coquettes, as 18 LE CORDON BLEU. to what was the true road to royal hearts, they might, on their own experience, have answered, par vos cotelettes, Mesdames. It is a fact that women never understood the kitchen better, than in that epoch of their greatest power. They understood it in its physiology, in its morahty, and in its politics. The immortal cotelettes a la Maintenon of the queen- mistress of Louis XIV. were as much an expedient of the times, as her revocation of the Edict of Nantes ; and her drag^es and her dragonnades were alike directed to the service of her own unmeasured am- bition. The best educated English women of the present day scarcely know the materiel of an entree^ or the elements which give its character to an en- tremet; or can tell when an hors-d'oeuvre should come in, or apiece de resistance should go out ;* but this great stateswoman, this elegant writer, and best dresser of her age, — she who governed France, and influenced Europe, — was likewise capable of regula- ting the most modest menage, with equal genius and equal attention to details. There is on record a letter of Madame de Main- tenon, which should be studied by all housekeepers, like their breviary. It is that, in which she lays out the expenditure of her thriftless brother's house and table, and tries to regulate the economy of her • A fair friend of mine having inadvertently ordered her Irish footman to ring tlie bell in the middle of a first course, he replied, in the spirit of a superior savoir faire, " If I do, ma'am, sure the goose wrill come up !" LE CORDON BLEU. 19 careless, slovenly sister-in-law's wardrobe, whom she reproaches with knowing as little of the science of the toilet as of that of the kitchen. * Such arts may be " the scoff of fools," but they will ever re- main " the reverence of the wise ;" for the woman who, under the pressure of necessity, can first dress a dinner, and then dress herself, to please the pa- late of the most fastidious, and the taste of the most precise, will be found adequate to every other exigency, in any combination, by which man (the creature of sense and appetite) may be saved, served, or gratified. Women are nature's own cooks ; and the power which man has usurped in the kitchen, as in the state, arose in a temporary necessity (a necessity now giving way to steam -kitchens and hot hearths) the demand for physical force. In all epochs of so- ciety, what man eats must mainly be determined by climates and races ; but in all, the manner and fitness of his meal must depend on the intelligence and science which are brought to its preparation : and there it is, that the adroitness, the patience, and the keen senses f of the sex, are super-emi- nently applicable. ♦ " Si ce calcul," she concludes, " pent vous etre utile, je n'aurais, pas de regret a la peine que j'ai prise de le faire ; et du moius je vous aurai fait voir que je sais quelque chose du menage.'^ — Lettres de Madame de M aintenon, v. i. f "The pleasant savoury smell So quicken'd appetite, that I methought Could not but taste it."— Paradise Lost. 20 LE CORDON BLEU. The children of the spicy East and dew-drop- ping South are provided by nature with delicate appetites, and with all the stimulating condiments necessary to a fastidious gastronomy. The northern tribes, voracious and indiscriminate in the urgency of their brute appetites, fall foul of whatever first substantially presents itself to their cravings. To the stomach of an ostrich, the tender and too- easily digestible fibre is no joke ; and to the shiver- ing little animals of the Pole, who feed the lamp of life as other lamps are fed, imbibing heat and nou- rishment from the same source, a dead seal is worth a covey of partridges ; and the rank savour of raw fish dried in the wind is more gratifying, than the most delicate fumet of the best preserved venison. But, amidst these coarser outlines of nature's adapta- tions, there are still concealed shadings and soften- ings of tone ; and when circumstance and civiliza- tion commenced their triumphs over the sterner necessities, woman, with her sensitive organization, must have been the first to discover culinary im- provements, and reduce them to practice. The women, indeed, must have early found that the animal susceptibility to civilization (that is to domestication and taming) lies in the stomach ; and that those species alone are capable of the pro- cess, whose will is eminently obedient to their ap- petites. The inference from the animal to the human stomach could not have been lost on female pene- tration ; and its application to the purposes of influ- ence was probably among the first uses of the dis- LE CORDON BLEU. 21 covery of Prometheus. From that day to this, the most stubborn and rebellious characters have been remarkable for their indifference to the art of eat- ing ; and, from Esau's mess of pottage, to Andrew Marvel's shoulder of mutton, the connexion be- tween spare diet and dogged obstinacy has remained unshaken. I'he earliest cookery on record will be found in the history of the Hebrews ; and it is there stated that the collation set before the angelic vi- sitants of Abraham was prepared by Sarah ; — a proof of the superior science of the future mother of nations. That the patriarchal women presided over the confection of bread may be inferred from the form it received, which was long and tapering, such as is still called " lady's fingers." The Jews, therefore, broke their bread, having no necessity for cutting it ; and their bread was so eminently good, that it was adopted as a general expression for viands of all descriptions. The Hebrew Cor- dons bleus also excelled in confectionary. So early as the mission of Moses, offerings of confectionary were ordained by the law ; and cakes of honey, flour, and oil, evince the ingenuity and savoir viwe of the fair descendants of Sarah. That gastronomy was not neglected among the Egyptian sciences, we have proofs in the picture histories of the country, so lately brought into evi- dence; and though the hardships incidental to a sojourn in the desert must have interfered with the lore derived by the Hebrew women from that 22 LE CORDON BLEU. quarter, there can be little doubt that such re- sources as circumstances left at their disposition, were rendered more fully available, through the culinary ability which was brought to their pre- paration. The refreshments offered to David by that pro- found intriguante, but excellent housewife, Abigail, though of a pastoral character, contained the ele- ments of the choicest cookery — barley, beans, len- tils, peas, dried figs, and grapes, butter, (or cream) honey, oil, and succulent veal j but how were these ingredients combined, and how served ? Had Abigail retained a tradition, or had she, in her philosophy, reconquered a knowledge of the uni- versality and immense capabilities of her veal ? Did she subdue the conqueror of Goliah with an oreille de veau a la Tartare ? or mollify him with a creme a la moelle, — the head and front of modern laitaye ; but also within the reach of the most rustic dairy? The solution of this question would involve the profoundest calculation of conflicting elements. A nation which wanted metals for arming its warriors, could hardly have possessed a respectable batterie de cuisine ; but then the tra- ditions of the table are amongst those most faith- fully preserved ; and woman, under the pressure of adverse circumstances, manifests such wonderful resources ! The Jews, however, were an obstinate race ; and, where prejudice interfered, hardened their stomachs, no less than their hearts, against " the LE CORDON BLEU. 23 goods the gods provided them." Thus, to the last, they remained insensible to the merits of the pig, that animal encydop^dique, — and were but little touched by the gastronomic capabilities of fish. In like manner, the Egyptians abjured mutton ; (they had probably no south-downs ; for Wales, and its delicious breed of sheep, were as yet undiscovered) — and they held beans in Pythagorean horror. Not, however, that such self-denial is always to be placed to the account of prejudice. St. Clement of Alexandria tells us that natural reasons may, in many instances, be given for it. The abstinences imposed by law or religion, he says, have generally originated in some wholesome, or prudential con- sideration. Tims Moses, Mahomet, and Father Matthew are in the same category ; for the swine, the wine, and the whiskey inhibited by each on religious grounds, were alike injurious to the health, or to the morality of the parties, to whom they were forbidden. It is always easier to fanatise, than reason man into virtue. Whatever progress was made in the culinary code of the Hebrews, women appear to have taken the initiative. The spices, gums, and essences intro- duced by Queen Sheba into the kitchens of Jeru- salem, were valuable innovations ; and the syrup of Guimauve of modern times is said to be made after one of the receipts furnished to " les offices" of Solomon, by that great woman. Cleopatra, that first-rate jue^i/e maitresse and efficient stateswoman, was not ignorant of the resources which the kitchen 24 LE CORDON BLEU. oflPers to ambition and to coquetry, to politics or passion. The exquisite luxury of her banquets was among the instruments by which she reigned over the hearts of her lovers, and subdued the enemies of her country. The suppers she gave to Caesar obtained for her the honours of a Roman Empress ; and Anthony's love of fish and of fish- ing was made instrumental to her deep political purposes. In spite of the religious prejudices of her subjects, she accompanied him in his piscatory excursions ; and, her frolicksome habits taken into consideration, she may have assisted in dressing the salmon she had helped to catch. Among the means by which Agrippina subju- gated the Emperor Claudius, her receipt for dres- sing mushrooms was not the least important. Claudius loved this dish, " not wisely, but too well ;'* and died, — not because the fungus was poisoned, but — because he was a glutton. The close alliance between the edible and the poisonous species of this genus is a sharp lesson given by nature to the gluttonous appetite; but its daily admonitions have been very uniformly set at nought ; and we have abundant classic authority for supposing that Claudius's case was by no means a rare one among the Romans. The masters of the world, however, were not master-cooks ; and the now popular entremet of the champiynon d la creme was a delicacy little dreamed of in their philosophy. * That delicious dish is now • As a general rule, house mushrooms are always the best and safest. LE CORDON BLEU. 25 de rigueur, in the second course of the spring and au- tumn wiCWM of all civilized tables; and the woman who is ignorant of ihepoco meno and poco piu of its con- stituent elements, (so essential to the digestion and health of her husband and his guests,) is unworthy, not only of an imperial throne, but to sit at the head of any board, more dignified than the cod's- head and shoulder table of a Bow-bell amphitryon. Such a woman is fit for nothing but the perpetra- tion of a " toad in the hole," or a participation in the mysteries of the apple-dumpling, which, if they "perplexed a monarch,"* are intelligible to the meanest capacities of kitchen-maids and servants of all work. With the Roman empire fell, in Europe, the great but unscientific kitchen of antiquity. The secrets of Vitellius were lost, the prize dishes of the Aventine fell from the memory of man, and the leaves of the imperial " Almanac des gourmands," like those of the sibyl, were scattered to the winds ; one solitary volume only finding its way to pos- terity, and that one rescued from oblivion by a physician of the 18th century, f Long, however, * See — not Milton, but — Peter Pindar. f There were three persons who bore the name of Apicius, all celebrated for their culinary science. Cselius Apicius, who lived in the reign of Tiberius, wrote a work on Roman cookery, of which an edition was printed in the year 1705 by Doctor Martin Lister, physician to Queen Anne; un- dertaken probably in deference to the well-known tastes of his royal patient. VOL. I. C 26 LE CORDON BLEU. before tlie final extinction of the Roman power, gastronomy shared the fate of the other sciences, and faded by degrees, with the fading genius and virtue of the people. The learning of the Romans was, indeed, all second-hand — borrowed from the more civilized countries, which their ferocious valour overthrew : and their start from savagery to refinement, in the table as in their other tastes, is more marked by caprice and expense, than by a true sense of the beautiful or the sublime. The culinary precision of Geta, who placed his dishes alphabetically, was not learning, but pedantry ; and though the secretary of Heliogabalus passed his life in writing out receipts and bills of fare, art owed little or nothing to that extravagant despot, with whom il n'etait de sauce, que la cherts. His •pates de Crete de coq, and his tites de papageux^ prove that to be an Emperor, is not enough to constitute a good cook. The plain good woman's dish, — the alouettes en sahni, a la bonne bouryeoise — would leave all the inventions of the imperial gastronome at an immeasurable distance. The irruption of the barbarians extinguished the last lingering lights of the kitchen (such as they were) with all other lights ; and their intel- lectual couvre-feu operated on the fires of the hot hearth, as on those of poetic and of scientific inspira- tion. The northern races, " hungry as the sea, could devour as much ;" and quantity, with them, was a far more important consideration than qua- lity. Antiquarian lore has dived laboriously into LE CORDON BLEU. 27 the culinary arrangements of those days ; but, to appreciate the barbarian kitchens of the fifth cen- tury, it is enough to have tasted the national cookery of the same races in the nineteenth : sour crout, pic kled herrings, and lusciously sweet pud- dings, followed by the final leg of mutton, ob- ligato, are still the staple of a German dinner ; and " even unto this day," the national dinners of the Saxon heptarchy may be traced in a genuine English bill of fare of their descendants. There may be some excuse for northern igno- rance on this point, in " tlie divinity wliich hedged in" their women, and which deemed it sacrilege to devote them to any coarse employment. The north men would have blushed to turn their noble wives into turnspits ; so the men took the cookery to them- selves, and a pretty mess they made of it. The crude fibre of an old ox satisfied the tastes of the rude worshippers of Odin ; and the heroes of Thor, like those of Homer, disdained not to prepare it with their own hands. The women, indeed, were consulted as oracles ; but it was on all subjects, save that which concerned the daily interests and comforts of the community. Charlemagne, to whom no source of social civi- lization was wholly unknown, was the first of his race to turn cookery to political purposes ; and to act upon that maxim, so extensively amplified by one of the last of his descendants, that la majesty du trone est dans la cuisine. He first taught his peers to eat like gentlemen ; and raised the culi- c 2 28 LE CORDON BLEU. nary profession to a state dignity, by institut- ing a domestic order, still found in European courts, — les officiers de la bouche. He made sovereign princes his waiters " for the nonce ;" he put Paladins into his pantries, and Bishops over his butteries ; and set the democratic example of degrading the privileged classes, by reducing them to menial servitude, and turning their " mean am- bition" to the " pride of kings" — the valet aille of Louis XIV. was the highest development of the schemes of Charlemagne.* To the festivities of this monarch, the women were recalled ; and something of their taste and ingenuity became soon visible in the Imperial table. Pheasants were served at Aix la Chapelle with gilt spurs ; and peacocks were dished with their gor- geous tails in full fan. The service, says a chro- nicler, was attended, par des jeunes petits pages, chamarres d'or, et jjur de gentes pucelles. Admitted to the table, the women were soon • At the coronation dinners of the Emperors of Germany at Aix-la-Chapelle and Frankfort, the Imperial table was directed by the Nine Electors — tlie modern Kings of Enrope — the Marquis of Braudebourg, " comme grande chara- bellain, porte un bassin d'arjent avec aiguieres et des serviettes parfumees ; il donna I'eau sur les mains de I'Em- pereur. Le Palatin du Rhin, portant qnatre plats d'argent rcmplis de viandes, les posa devant TEmporeur ; puis le Roi de Bolieme portant un tasse rempli de vin, presenta a boire a I'Empereur." After the feast was over, these illustrious valets were left to scramble for the plunder of the table. — " Creation de la Dignite Imperiale, -par Claude d'Alhois." LE CORDON BLEU. 29 found necessary to the government of the kitchen ; and females of the highest rank {les plus titr^es) occupied themselves with the interior of their house- holds, in preparing aliment for their families, and for stranger guests. Amidst the barbaric pomp of their knightly husbands, some touches of refine- ment were thus introduced to vary the homeliness of their ancient fare. Under the deviceful imagi- nation of the sex, eels appeared with the darts of serpents and the eyes of basilisks ; and dwarfs jumped out of pasties, with aultres joyemitees pa- reilles; which, absurd as they may now appear, were then well fitted to set the table in a roar. Scarcely had the merchants of Venice re-intro- duced the spices into Europe, when the women in- troduced them into their domestic cookery; and when the perfumes of Araby the blest breathed their odours over the ill- scented chambers of royalty, they were transported to the kitchen, till even the fish was quelquefois cuit a I'eau rose. But the Church also took a considerable part in culinary reform, and joined the women in forward- ing the social entertainments of their flocks. The great abbeys were schools of gastronomy ; the learning of the Benedictines was applied to the re- fectory; and many lady abbesses, canonized for their fasts and vigils, better deserved a place in the album sanctorum for their confectionary and their compounds. Monasteries were indeed the asylums of culinary, as of all other learning ; and to this day *' latin de cuisine" is applied to express so LE CORDON BLEU. what in English is called dog latin — as intimating the imperfect latinity of those friars, who, in their devotion to gastronomic studies, had necessarily- become less perfect proficients in their humanities, than their brethren, who knew no other proof of the pudding than the eating. But, in spite of the priests and of the women, the progress of the art was slow and vacil- lating. Though the potages must have been of early date in monasteries and in hospitals, soup, in its modern acceptation, was perhaps first histo- rically noticed in the commencement of the fif- teenth century. The charming chronicler, Mon- strelet, describing the festivities on the marriage of Catherine de Valois with our Henry the Fifth, mentions tliat the Archbishop of Sens, at the head of a procession of the clergy of his diocese, served up the soup and wine to the bridal chamber of the royal pair. About the same epoch, accident favoured les droits de la louche, in France, by raising its ministers to a high position. During the insanity of Charles the Sixth, the Comte de St. Paul raised a militia in Paris of five hundred garcons bouchers, commanded by their own officers, the master pro- prietors of la boucherie. This corps, having fought well at the battle of Azincourt, retained their mi- litary grades and plunder ; and from these knights of tlie marrowbones and cleaver, descended some of the noble houses of France — the illustrious fa- milies of Saint-Yon, Thibeaut, ^^-et autres" says LE CORDON BLEU. 31 the chronicler, owe their origin to layrande boucherie de Paris of the fifteentli century. If the servants of the abattoirs of Paris were thus mounting the baronial coronet, an English Queen (but a French woman) raised her cook to the rank of an English gentleman. Eleanor de Provence, the consort of Henry the Third of England, struck by the superior art of Richard de Norreys, her sergeant cook, induced the king to grant him the manor of Ockholt, or Ockwell, in Berkshire. From this eminent artist, so generously appreciated by his royal mistress, descended a family, which, in the days of Elizabeth, ranked high in the state ; and represented that class — their country's boast and pride — the gentry of England, under its most re- spected phasis. About one mile from the ancient town of Bray, immortalized in story by its versatile, yet ever- consistent vicar, still rises for the delight of the antiquary and the triumph of the gastronome, one of the most perfect and interesting specimens ex- tant, of the old English manor houses of the middle ages : it was erected by John de Norreys, the direct descendant of Richard, the queen's cook. John de Norreys bequeathed, by will, a large sum for the completion of this mansion ; or, as he ex- presses it, for the " full building and making uppe of the said chappel, with the chambers adjoining, within my manor of Ocholt, in the parish of Bra\ , not yet finished." Of the portions of this manor- house still existing, its gables, porches, and beau- 32 LE CORDON BLEU. tiful windows of six bays, the most remarkable feature is the quartering of the arms of the his- torical cook with the armorial bearings of the proudest peers of England. Here, among the antelopes of Henry the Sixth, the eagles of Mar- garet d'Anjou, the crests of the Beauforts, and the lambriquins of the Beauchamps, are still to be seen the beaver of Richard de Norreys, with the appropriate motto of " faitlifully serve," borrowed from the calling of the founder of the family. The wars of the Roses were unfavourable to the arts ; and the English kitchen retrograded with the rest. The " household bokes,"" so carefully kept by the Lancasters, were lost or destroyed ; though that of the old Countess of Hereford * is still extant ; and the sensual but thriftless Yorks, as careless of their domestic details, as of those of the state, left few lights behind tliem to guide the researches of posterity. Still, Edward the Fourth, all voluptuary as he might be, was a cautious one ; and sinning by rule, he escaped the penalty of excess. " The doc- teur of physique stondeth much in the king's pre- sence at his meles, counselling or answering to the king's grace, which diet is best according ; and to tell the nature and operation of all metes. And much he should talke with the steward, chamerlayn, asserver, and the maister cook, to devise, by coun- sayle, what metes and drinks is best according with the king."f * The gra»)clmotlier of the immortal Henry the Fifth, t In tlie Liber Niger, or household-book, of Edward IV. LE CORDON BLEU. 33 The elevation of the Tudors, accompanied, as it probably was, by the introduction of Welsh mutton, formed an epoch in the science ; and, while it served the parsimonious habits of the seventh Henry, it may have afforded a not-neglected hint to his luxurious successor. But it was the feasts of the field of gold that gave a more decided impulse to culinary progress in England, by the many and vast improvements, then and there borrowed from the cooks of more civilized France, which, even before the time of Louis the Eleventh, had pre- ceded all the northern states in gastronomy. It was one of the Preux of that nation, who intro- duced the shalot from the plains of Ascalon 5 and La belle chatelaine la dame de ses pensees first em- ployed it in the ragouts of her table. Parsley was brought from Italy, with the first rudiments of that Opera Buffa, which still bears, in Paris, its original name j while the saucisseuses of the fifteenth century gave a promise of fame and fortune, from their manipulation of pork, which the charcutiers of the seventeeth are well known to have realised. But the epoch of la renaissance (a term which has shed round Francis the First a glory denied him on the plains of Pavia) founded a professional chair for cookery, which has never since been va- cated, in all the revolutions of French fortunes. Francis the First again, for the third time, brought back the women to the court, whence the ferocious Louis the Eleventh had banished them. His Italian daughter-in-law, Catherine de Medicis, being placed c 5 34t LE CORDON BLEU. at the head of the royal household, brought to her lofty position all the lights and science of the Ita- lian " office," then the first in the world. Confec- tionary, the poetry of the kitchen, was at its acme ; and les patisseurs de la Dauphine shed a glory on the whole order, by the ingenuity tliey displayed in their architectural and allegorical structures. They were soon incorporated into a company ; and, in the reign of Cliarles the Ninth, the son of this foundress of Vart sucre^ they received a statute, " ou Von remarque le privilege defabriquer la pain a chanter messe." The French cookery displayed in the field of gold made an obvious impression upon Wolsey, the greatest man, and most liberal Amphitryon of his age ; to whom his brute king was not worthy to be a scullion. He saw, at once, the advantage of a reform in the rude English kitchen ; and the " Butcher's cur," the " honeste poore man's Sonne," who, from the heights of his own great mind, must have looked down on the ferocious de- scendant of Owen Tudor, soon introduced the ele- gancies of the French table among the other civi- lizing influences of learning and art. In his Palace of Hampton, the Cardinal Minister may be said to have established a college of gastronomy, of which the halls and offices still standing give the best idea. They are the last subsisting monument in the country of priestly magnificence, and of the household arrangements of clmrchmen, at the time when tlioyaccumulated in the hands of the sameindi- vidual, the highest offices of the church and the state. LE CORDON BLEU. 35 Among the thousand domestics who crowded the vastness of Hampton Court, many were noble peers, knightly gentlemen, and gallant squires, " The liv'ryed army and the menial lords." One domestic official there was, who strutted in pre-eminent importance through its halls, in doublet and cloak of crimson velvet, rich gold chain, and feathered cap, to whom men took off their bonnets as he passed, reverently observing, '* There goes my lord cardinal's master cook." This personage held under his rule two first and six under cooks, a yeoman and groom of the larder, a yeoman and two grooms of the scullery, two yeomen and two grooms of the buttery, three yeomen and three pages in the cellary, two yeomen in the chandry, two yeomen and two grooms of the ewery, and two yeomen in the wafery.* To the sumptuous banquets prepared by this Vatel of the mighty and munificent churchman, the fairest ladies of England f were invited ; and they studied under his lessons the dishes and devices, * See an agreeable little volume by C. Jesse, Esq., Surveyor of Her Majesty's Parks and Palaces, entitled, " A Summer's Day at Hampton Court." The recent regulations, by which the public is freely ad- mitted to view the curious and interesting interior of that royal palace, without " let or hindrance," or paying for their tickets at the door, does great honour to the present Administration. When will the reverend proprietors of Westminster Abbey take the hint ? f " This \u