of liberal principles, and at the moment Lord Goderich and Mr. Huskisson are declaiming in favour of an extension of the rights of trade to all nations, the United States are made the only exception to the application of these principles, and debarred a reciprocity which is conceded to all other nations. Comforted, as England must be, by the assurances of Lieutenant De Roos, that it would be impossible to force the United States into a war with her," reinforced by his assertion, that our "naval power has been greatly overrated," and that nothing is further from our thoughts than "to presume to dispute the dominion of the seas"-that is, to oppose the towering pretensions of England-we are much mistaken, if the period is not near at hand, when the "union of mother and daughter," consummated by a toast of the late Mr. Canning, will be dissolved by a series of very different demonstrations on the part of his surviving colleagues. But enough for the present. All that we presume to inculcate is, the necessity of eternal vigilance. England is strengthening her frontiers all around us. Quebec is another Gibraltarforts are constructing at every point where the means of annoyance or defence are the greatest-and, as Lieutenant De Roos triumphantly observes, "let them," the Americans, "also consider that we possess an arsenal even greater in value, and more threatening in position. I allude to Bermuda, which may be said to be a thorn in the very heart of maritime America."

But for these, and similar remarks, which we make no doubt express the secret feelings of the English nation and government towards us, we should not have taken the trouble to notice this puerile work. It belongs to that worthless class of productions, with which, under the title of "Recollections," "Sketches," "Continental Adventures," "Personal Travels," &c. &c., the wandering English of the present day have deluged the world; and of which by far the better half, is nothing more than an ebullition of that absurd, homebred arrogance, so peculiar to islanders. The absence of all real information, is supplied by mere fiddle-faddle about pretty girls-dirty inns, where these unfortunate travellers are devoured by fleas and bugs, in the midst of snow and ice*-saucy stage-drivers-disagreeable stagecoach companions-rough roads-open stages, and such like important particulars, eked out with fulsome comparisons of the delightful comforts of English cottagers, and lusty manufacturers starving to death in the midst of the garden of Eden. Wherever they go, they are sure to inflict upon the world a book, in which nothing is commemorated but a good dinner, and the hospitalities of a people are repaid with insults and calumny. The cour

*See "Rome in the Nineteenth Century," the fair authoress of which is frozen to death, and bitten to death, at the same moment, in the North of Italy. Bur fleas are not such hardened sinners.

tesies of France, the attentions of Italy, and the open-handed liberality of the United States, meet with no other return but sneers at their religion, caricatures of their manners, and sweeping condemnations of their morals. That generous love of country, which prefers the land of our birth to every other spot on the face of the earth, is in them only a stupid contempt for all other nations, which debases their patriotism into a species of universal hostility. Of Lieutenant De Roos, we cannot find in our hearts to speak so harshly. He is, if we are not mistaken, too frivolous to be ill-natured-too superficial to intend any serious harm; and, without doubt, his book would have been only an object of laughter to us, had not these individual characteristics been swallowed up in the fathomless vortex of an insatiate national vanity. We cordially acquit him of any other offences save ignorance, haste, inaccuracy, and prejudice.

ART. V.-Des comestibles et des vins de la Grèce et de l'Italie en usage chez les Romains. Par G. PEIGNOT. Of the Eatables and Wines of Greece and Italy in use amongst the Romans. By G. PEIGNOT. Dijon.

In the present article, it is our intention to endeavour to identify the chief comestibles, made use of by the inhabitants of ancient Rome, when at her greatest pitch of glory: for, although the subject has not escaped the attention of commentators, it is by no means exhausted, as is sufficiently evidenced by the meagre detail before us. Independently of the interest which such inquiries possess, to those who consider, with Epicurus, apz xai ῥίζα παντὸς ἀγαθοῦ ἡ τῆς γας προς ἡδονὴ καὶ τὰ σοφα τὰ περισσα ἐπὶ ταύτην ixel Tv ȧrapopar, they are agreeable objects of research to the antiquary, whose triumph is complete when able to verify any transaction, or explain away any difficulty relating to matters of old. Nor can they be wholly devoid of interest to any class of readers" tout ce qui regarde," properly observes M. Peignot, "les mœurs des peuples de l'antiquité, même dans les plus petits détails, a droit d'interesser, comme monumens historiques très précieux; en effet, ces détails sur la vie privée des anciens, sont comme des reflets de lumière, qui jetés sur le vaste tableau de l'histoire des nations, font mieux ressortir le caractère de chaque peuple, et nous identifient, pour ainsi dire, non avec tel ou tel personnage, mais avec la société, telle qu'elle existoit dans des temps reculés,"

It would be a curious matter of investigation, to trace how far the varying extravagance of the table, might be considered indica

tive of the comparative degree of prosperity of any individual nation, at different periods of its history, or of the rank which it from time to time occupied, as regarded others; but this would lead us away from our present object. Nor is it our intention to inquire into the several sorts and occasions of entertainments with the Romans, or into the ceremonies before and at them; nor to enter at length into the history of the coquus or cook, and the various useful personages who administered to their bonne chère. We may merely remark, that cooks from Sicily were esteemed before all others the expression "Sicula dapes," being used to signify the nicest dishes, whilst the Greeks possessed the same exalted idea of the Sicilian artists-Eixxxn paxega-being a proverbial phrase for a table furnished profusely and luxuriously. In the time of the first Roman Emperors, when the pleasures of the table were carried to the extreme of licentiousness, we find enormous salaries given to the cook-upwards of 4000 dollars was by no means uncommon. Mark Antony once presented his cook with a whole corporate town or municipium, solely because he succeeded in dressing a pudding to the satisfaction of Cleopatra-an example which the 8th Harry of England, himself of gastronomic celebrity, was not ashamed to imitate-à distance, however-by parcelling out one of the Crown Manors, as a reward to a lady who had compounded a pudding which was particularly pleasing to his taste. Again, the French, notwithstanding their fondness for the "science de la gueule," as Montaigne has termed it, and their being so largely indebted to the profession, have, with sufficient ingratitude, derived from it their name for a rascal-Coquin.*

In Athenæust we have numerous examples of the insolence and vanity of the Cook; and some interesting anecdotes of this character may be found in the latter numbers of Cumberland's Observer, especially in the 147th, consisting of a translation from Straton; but all these displays are so completely obscured by an anecdote contained in the Letters of Madame de Sevigné, which exhibits the lofty bearing of the cooks of her time, and their sort of romantic devotion, worthy of a better cause, that, although at the risk of its being known to many, we cannot resist the desire to place it before our readers.

At a splendid entertainment given by the great Condé to Louis the XIV. by some accident the rôti was wanting at one or more of the lower tables. Vatel, the Prince's Maitre d' Hôtel, was

"De toutes les étymologies qu'on donne de ce mot, celle qui me plaît davantage, et qui me paroît la plus naturelle, c'est celle qui le dérive de Coquus, cuisinier, ou plutot de coquina, cuisine: Coquinus s'est dit originairement des plus bas officiers de cuisine et ensuite des gens les plus vils et les plus méprisables," &c.-Ménage, Dictionnaire Etymologique, Art. Coquin,

Athen. Deipnosoph. vii. 290.

so much concerned at this, that the Prince considered it necessary to visit him in his bed-chamber for the purpose of consoling him. "Vatel," said he, "tout va bien: rien n'etoit plus beau que le souper du Roi." "Monseigneur," he replied, "votre bonté m'acheve; je sais que le rôti a manqué à deux tables!" On the following day, however, a greater misfortune, and one more serious in its consequences, awaited this too sensitive individual, viz. the non-arrival of the fish! "A quatre heures du matin," says Madame de Sevigné, Madame de Sevigné, "Vatel s'en va partout; il trouve tout endormi. Il rencontre un petit pourvoyeur qui lui apportoit seulement deux charges de marée: il lui demande. "Est ce là tout?" "Oui, Monsieur." Il ne savoit pas que Vatel avoit envoyé à tous les ports de mer. Vatel attend quelque temps: les autres pourvoyeurs ne vinrent point: sa tête s'echauffoit: il crut qu'il n'y auroit point d'autre marée. Il trouve Gourville; il lui dit." "Monsieur, je ne survivrai point à cet affront-ci." Gourville se moqua de lui. Vatel monte à sa chambre, met son épée contre la porte, et se la passe au travers du cœur mais ce ne fut qu'au troisieme coup, car il s'en donna deux qui n'étoient pas mortels, qu'il tomba mort. La marée, cependant, arrive de tous côtés; on cherche Vatel pour la distribuer; on va à sa chambre, on heurte, on enfonce la porte: ou le trouve noyé dans son sang. On court à M. le Prince, qui fut au desespoir. M. le Duc pleura; c'etoit sur Vatel que tournoit tout son voyage de Bourgogne M. le Prince le dit au Roi fort tristement. On dit que c'étoit à force d'avoir de l'honneur à sa manière. On le loua fort; on loua et blâma son courage." Had it been some brother hero sinking to rest in the arms of victory, no greater feeling could have been displayed by the great Condé; and what a commentary is suggested by the honour paid to this individual, on the assertions of Heraclides, and Glaucus the Locrian-that the culinary art is unworthy of the meanest freeborn person—“ οὐχ ̓ ἀρμοττειν φάει την μαγείρικην ἀλλ ̓ ουδε τοις τύχουσι τῶν ἐλευθερών.”

We shall not stay to inquire into the origin of the Ars Coquinaria, or whence the Greeks derived their skill in it: suffice it to say, that they had evidently several writers on the subject, two of whom we have just noticed from Athenæus, and others are to be found mentioned in the works of that copious and interesting writer. From these the Romans derived much of their information we are not aware of any authors on the subject amongst them at an early period, but subsequently many treatises were composed: none of these, however, have descended to us, except that which is ascribed to Apicius,* and this, more for its antiquity than merit, has occupied the attention of several

*

Apicii Cœlü de Opsoniis et Condimentis, sive Arte Coquinariâ, Libr. x.

commentators of Torinus, Barthius, Almeloveen, Humelberg, and Lister, who have taken considerable pains to illustrate their original.

*

One of the greatest difficulties experienced by the commentators, has been to fix upon the precise era at which this Apicius, if such were his real name, flourished: there were three Apicii at Rome, each of whom was celebrated "dans les annales de la cuisine:" they are all referred to by Athenæus, from whom, and from other writers, it would seem that the second in point of chronology was the most celebrated of the three. Athenæus places him under the reign of Tiberius, and asserts that there were several sorts of cakes which bore his name. Pliny, too, frequently refers to him, and to the dishes he invented. This individual, who has the prænomen of Gabius, assigned to him by Dión, is said by Seneca to have spent 60,000,000 sestertii, or upwards of 2,000,000 of dollars on his table; and to have destroyed himself, from a fear that he would die of hunger, having but 10 millions sestertii, upwards of 350,000 dollars, remaining. To this second Apicius has usually been attributed the treatise "de opsoniis et condimentis," but this is extremely doubtful, as independently of the circumstance, that the work is published under the name of Cœlius Apicius, a prænomen which does not answer to any of the three Apicii, there is strong internal evidence that it must have appeared at a date much later than that of any of them. Albanus Torinus, who found the Treatise in the island of Maguelone, near Montpellier, and who published it twelve years afterwards, in 1541, at Basil, has been much censured for asserting, that he immediately "smelt" the true air of antiquity about the author: "olfaciebam statim autorem esse vetustissimum," and especially by Latinus Latinius in his Bibliotheca profana, quoted by Fabricius, who seems to have examined the author critically; and, if his opinion be honest, has satisfactorily proved that it must have been a comparatively neoteric production.

M. Peignot is of opinion with Vossius, that Cœlius might have been the name of the author, and Apicius the title of the book, merely because it treated of the culinary art; "Comme nous disons un Barême, pour designer un livre de Comptes faits: ainsi le titre de ce livre seroit L'Apicius, ou de l'art de la Cuisine, par Cœlius," and this idea is somewhat confirmed by the sense in which the word Apicius was occasionally used, by Juvenal and others, to signify, as it has since done, any one expensive in eating, or of the "Gens de Bouche."

« Εγένετο δὲ κατὰ τοὺς Τιβέριου χρόνους ανηρ τίς ̓́Απίκιος, πλούσιατατος, τρυφητης, αφ' οὗ πλακούντων γένη πολλα Απίκια ονομάζεται.” Athen, i. 7.