DOMESTICITIES - • - - Domesticities. By E. V. Luella
(Smith, Elder, and Co.
This little book provides light entertainment for idle half-hours. The essays it contains. are gracefully written, and while they hardly aspire to be thchightful, they may well provoke the reader to think. 'They will certainty make_ him smile. The four first papers deal respectively with "Toast," "Breakfast," "Walks," and "Tea." Of these "Breakfast" is the best worth reading. Mr. Lucas quotes from a sixteenth-century manuscript belonging to the house of Northumberland, which gives the breakfast. arrangements of the Percy family, both for Lent and for flesh' days. Here are the items of the Lenten nursery meal provided for Lady Margaret and Master Ingeram Percy :—" A manchet (small loaf of white bread), a quart of beer, a dish of butter, a piece of salt fish, a dish of sprats, or three white herring." On flesh days instead of the fish they had "three mutton bones boiled." We might have hoped the little lady and gentleman had more than one nurse to help them with their beer, but that the "three herring" and "three mutton bones" are in- direct evidence against this supposition. Certainly this was, as Mr. Lucas says, a "thirsty nursery." "Tea,' be tells us n another essay; "should be brewed of the right strength at the beginning and poured into cups and reserved cups, or decanted into another teapot." The suggestion as to the " reserved cups" does not commend itself to us at all In - China, we are told, every teapot bears the.legend "At. your ease drink-this precious liquor," but who could drink at his ease while his -second cup cooled before him? On the :whole, - the paper . we -most enjoy is "Concerning Animals." His birds give -the - essayist and his readers so much pleasure. We are pained by the conduct of his cat, with whom he is so justly indignant, and. amused by the story of the cockatoo who, after travelling for five . hours in a deal-19x, with the corners sawn off to allow, him to breathe, was _finally, liberated at his destination "by two frightened men in wicket-keeping gloves."
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