mudists, though the Ulemas differ; and Francatelli is thus the restorer of the culinary ritual. His own incontestable superiority in all the lighter products, which a profane friend of ours terms the parfumerie of the dinner-table, compels an implicit assent to his doctrines upon these points. Happily, his injunctions and precepts are stated with an explicitness which leaves nothing to be questioned or desired. Do you wish to know the most recent improvements in the preparation of jams and jellies, compotes, dessert-cakes and bonbons, water and cream ices, summer drinks, &c.,-they are communicated here. The author is copious also in the matter of recipes for wine and other kinds of cups, for salads and appetizers, American drinks and granitos, which will be found of material use to you or the impostor, your butler, by enabling you to produce what neither of you were competent to otherwise. The whole book has the merit of being exceedingly plain, of containing sufficient cross-references to satisfy a Panizzi, and of being so serviceably arranged in all its parts, that we defy you to miss any of the consolations intended for your physical infirmities.

Of course no cookery book is perfect, nor will be till the Francatelli and Faraday epoch is over, and we finally luxuriate in the Millennium of digestive chymistry. Even Francatelli's is founded on an earlier dispensation, which he does not altogether and in every instance supersede. He is silent on the serious theme of Irish stew. If you want a rump-steak pudding compounded on the right

ideal, you must still resort to the Modern Domestic Cookery; or if you have a patriotic love for Christmas pudding, strangely enough, you must refer to the 'Modern Housewife' of the Frenchman M. Soyer. Great is the product of the latter artist, especially in the items of almonds and marrow; and, while we mention Soyer, can we forget his snipe kidneys? If we remember rightly, he designates them by a more pretentious title, but the recipe is an invention by which that avium avis facile princeps is, as it were, sublimated and kept perpetually in

season.

We have a more direct controversy with Signor Francatelli on the constituents of his veal-and-ham pie, which, as enjoined in his commandments, must produce a result too pungent for our English palates. But having made these sacrifices to our desire to find critical fault, we have no comment left but words of praise and gratitude. His 'Cook's Guide' is an admirable manual for every household where pleasure, health, and economy are consulted. He has imparted all that can be imparted of his personal excellence. We are aware that much of a chef's manipulation, of his sense of flavour as a corrective to the varying quality of his ingredients, of his coup-d'œil and capacity to deal with the unforeseen-in short, of the personal skill of the performer, can never be imparted in books, or, indeed, in any form of instruction. The idiosyncrasy of a cook is impressed on his most volatile materials; and as no two persons see precisely the same rainbow, so no two hands

compound identically the same dish. In the most homely forms of cookery, in the west of England for example, where the Abigails generally excel in the frying of pancakes, we never met with any two who produced them of exactly the same consistency; and one pancake differed from another pancake in savour as one star differs from another star in brilliancy. A fortiori, in the preparation of a Salmi or a Mayonnaise there is a greater latitude for this variety of results, and no one must suppose that, with the very best instructions, he will precisely imitate the manner of the author. Subject to this qualification, however, a book such as this is the best service which an accomplished cook can render, for it really does popularize some of his best combinations, and, subject to refined distinctions, renders them possible to the meanest capacity.

233

MEMOIRS OF PROFESSOR WILSON.

WE have before us a Memoir of Professor Wilson, compiled by his daughter, Mrs. Gordon, with illustrations from his correspondence, and a provision of sketches of a humorous description from the well-known portfolios of Mr. Lockhart. In summing up its contents, we cannot say that they alter in any material sense the impressions entertained as to Wilson's character, or the measure which has been taken of his literary capacity. No one has painted him so fully to the eye of the reader as Wilson himself in his various magazine sketches. His versatile talents, his academical culture, his ardent sensibilities, his affection— for it was no less-for natural objects and scenery, and his transcendent animalism, were his cardinal qualities, and his writings made them patent and popular phenomena. There remained little for his biographer in the sense of

*

Christopher North;' a Memoir of John Wilson, late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Compiled from family papers and other sources by his daughter, Mrs. Gordon. 2 vols. Edmonston and Douglas, 1862.

characterization but to fill up the outlines with which we were familiar with the details of time, place, and attendant circumstances. Some of the facts of his life, however, remained to be told, and one or two of its little secrets; and these, though they do not alter our impressions of the man, are now revealed to us for the first time here.

John Wilson was born at Paisley, then "pretty" and "pleasant," in May, 1785. Like most talented men, he was the son of a remarkable mother, whose maiden name was Margaret Sym, and whose brother Robert is not unknown to fame as the "Timothy Tickler" of the Noctes Ambrosiana. Mrs. Wilson herself was one of the dignified old Scotch ladies, of whom Lord Cockburn has sketched the principal types; and she appears to have possessed such bitter prejudices, combined with her maternal virtues, that we are quite content with a distant acknowledgment of her merits. The earliest thing we hear of her son John is the characteristic fact that he angled in a "wee burnie" with thread and crooked pin when he was only three years old; that he played at preaching, and took for the subject of his sermon the delinquencies of a fish which behaved unparentally to its offspring; and that he drew "Teegars," which, as he himself opined afterwards, would have made Sir Edwin Landseer stare. He was first sent to school at Paisley, then in the neighbouring parish of Mearns, that parish which he has described so lovingly in his 'Recreations,' in the papers entitled 'Our Parish,' 'Christopher in his Sporting Jacket,' and 'May Day.' As the author of