THE BOOK OF TABLE-TALK.
IT is needless to use arguments to prove the popularity of' collec- tions of anecdotes, pithy sayings, and all those other choice odds and ends that are included under the term anti. The best argu- ment is their sale; and be these kind of books good, bad, or indif- ferent, they are the surest card in the bookseller's pack—one that will always turn up trumps either high or low. The cause, how- ever, of this popularity has been sometimes sought for, and various reasons have been assigned. To us it appears sufficiently ex- plained when we consider that they gratify two of the strongest passions in our nature—the love of variety and the love of ease. They cannot pall, when the subjects, persons, and modes, are ever changing. They are too short to fatigue the mind; and, better than all, they require no stretch of attention. At the worst, we have the best or the funniest passages of good or funny books at the best, we have the quintessence of keen observation and deep thought, which compresses into a single sentence the meaning that others would have expanded over a space immeasurably greater. And the condensation of wits is not like that of philo- sophers or historians—the one requires knowledge and thought to comprehend ; the other flashes conviction. 'When some one —TAL LEYR A ND most probably—put into the mouth of the Comte D'Aavois as he rode into Paris on NAPOLEON'S downfal, the bon mot,"II n'y a qu'un Francais de plus," a sentence expressed the meaning of wearisome protocols and proclamations. It said as plainly as could be—" The Bourbons intend to change nothing. Those who have won 'honours may wear them ; those who have got the estates of emigrants may keep them; those who bought the property of the Church may enjoy their sacrilege in this world and square accounts in the next."
Of this class of works, at once so pleasant and so profitable to all concerned in them, the Book qf Table-TaM is as good a collec- tion as we have ever seen ; and the second volume excels the first, in the value, variety, and entertaining character of its contents. It will not only while away a leisure hour most agreeably, or afford a gentle stimulus to the mind when flat or over-exhausted, but store the reader with much curious and even learned matter, the marrow as it were of rare volumes. The compiler has not merely had recourse to the Memoirs and Letters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for the manners of courts awl courtiers, the oddities of characters, and the sayings of wits: he has referred to the writings of the learned soon after the revival of learning, for singular opinions; he has examined the papers of the British Museum, for contemporary anecdotes and sketches of past ages; and he has enriched the volume with articles of his own,—some- times original, like the judicious Notes on Napoleon, sometimes a paper of points, which he only connects together with pleasant gossip. The person, if such there be, who never has an hour that hangs heavily, may disregard this book : all the rest of the world should possess themselves of it. As the Orientals say, when they have said their say, "What can we say more ?" No- thing. But we give some extracts.
The following passage is from a very various and entertaining paper on the Divine Right of Kings. The extract is part of a sermon preached by WILLIAMS, Bishop of Lincoln, at the funeral Of JAMES the First. The Bishop was evidently one of those "gentlemen" whom the present Archbishop of CANTERBURY sale must be tempted to enter the Church by a prize of 4000/. a year. Let us, however, do justice to the Right Reverend Father of the olden time. 'With the office of Court preacher he possessed its qualifications. He had a plain and nervous style, the keen percep- tion of excellence necessary for a critic of kings; and though his learning was dashed by the pedantry of his age, it was learning .after all, and he was its master, not its slave.
TARALLEL BETWEEN KING SOLOMON AND KING JAMES.
"I dare presume to say you never read in your lives of two kings more fully paralleled amongst themselves and better distinguished front all other kings be- aides themselves. King Solomon is said to be unioenitus comm matre the only son of his mother. Prov. iv. 3. So was King James. Solomon was of a complexion white and ruddy. Cant. v. 10. So was King James. Solomon was an infant king, puer parvulus, a little child. I Chests. xxii. 5. So was King James a king at the age of thirteen months. Solomon began his reign its the life of his predecessor. I Kings i. 82. So, by the force and compulsion of that state, did our late sovereign King James. Solomon was twice crowned and anointed a king. I Chron. xxix. 22. So was King James. Solomon's minority was rough through the quarrels of the former sovereign ; so was that of King James. Solomon was learned above all princes of the East. I Kings iv. 20. So was King James above all the po laces in the universal world. So- lomon was a writer in prose and verse. I Kings iv. 32. So, in a very pure and exquisite manner, was our sweet Sovereign King James." • * • •
"Anil as for his words and eloquence, you !mow it well enough ; it was rare and excellent in the highest degree. Solomon, speaking of his own faculty in this kind, divides it into two several heads---a ready invention, and an easy
diachuge and expression of the same. God hattt granted me to speak as would, and to conceive as is meet, for the things spoken of.' Misch vii. 15. And this Na. eminent iii our late Sovereign. His invention was) as quick as his hist thoughts, and his words as ready as his invention. God hath given hint to conceive. The Greek word in that place is isSup.itStTeas, that is to make an enthvmem or a short syllogism ; and that was his manner. He would first wind up the whole substance of his discourse into one Nobel and massive con.. ception, and then spread it and dilate it to what compass lie pleased,—' profiu- enti et quw principem deceret eloquentia,' (as Tacitus said of Augustus),—in a flowing and princely kind of elocution. Those speeches of kis in the Par- liament, Star Chamber, Council-table, and other public audiences of the State, (of which, as of Tully's orations, 'ea scraper optima, qua maxima,' the longest still was held the best,) do prove him to be the most powerful speaker that ever swayed the sceptre of this kingdom. In his style you may observe the Ecclesi- astes, in his figures the Canticles, in his sentences the Proverbs, and in his whole discourse Reliquum verborum Salomonis—all the rest that was admirable in the eloquence of Solomon."
The "Desultory Chapter on Eating," should rather have been called a chapter on eaters; for it has little information on dishes, and that only incidentally, when narrating the exploits of the masters of the art. There are some capital anecdotes of the Count DU BROUSSIN, the great improver if not the founder of French cookery ; who even set out his tables with his own hand by line and rule, as he held that the slightest inclination of a dish affected the flavour of its contents. These, however, must not be carved out piecemeal : but here is a solitary one of an Italian prince, which is enough to mark the man as well as the chapter.
The Prince di —, at whose table this prince of parasites often dined, although he paid for them, was as fond of good dinners as the abbe, and had a Sicilian cook of surpassing excellence. Once having occasion to visit his es- tates in the provinces, he sent on the chef and his assistants and casserols in a van some days befute him, with orders to wait for him at a town near the foot of some mountains where the cart iage-road ended. When the Prince reached the appointed place, his first inquiry was fur the dear cook, the second whether the implements of his art had arrived safe. The next day, being mounted on mules, the whole party, including, besides the chef and his aides-dc camp, the Prince's chaplain, steward, valet, two footmen, a groom, and some soldiers as an escort, took a bridle. road across the mountains, which in many places was rather dangerous, being flanked by rocks and precipices. Having seen the bat- terie de cuisine safely packed on one beast and the cook mounted on another, the Prince said, " Take good care of yourself, for, if any thing should happen. to you, what shall I do for a dinner in these barbarous parts !" and having so warned the chef, he went and placed himself at the head of the cavalcade. As the road or path became worse and worse, he turtled round now and then to err, " Have a care of those casseroles ! Cook, mind what you are about!" Wit at a point where the path had turned round the shoulder of a rock, whick prevented his seeing along the lengthened line, then marching in Indian-file fashion, his nerves sustained a sad shock, for on a sudden he heard the snort of a mule and the scream of a man, and then a plump and a splashing as if some one had fillen over the precipice into the torrent below. -Pale, and with his kuees knocking against Ids saddle, he turned back to see what it was, exclaiming as he went, " The cook, the cook ! Holy Virgin, the cook !" " No, your Excel- leiter," replied a voice along the line, "it is Don Prosdocinio !" " Ah, on1): the chaplain !" said the Prince: " God be thanked !"
'Without being too fine or delicate in externals,—a grievous fault when the volume is to be constantly handled,—the .Book of Table-Talk is neatly got up, and illustrated with some tolerable and a few more than tolerable wood-cuts. What a spirited pro- cession of priests is the tailpiece to the refilled reasons why priests rude upon mules ! and how well the figure intended for VAN- BRUGH looks in the full-fashioned dress of the early GEORGES I
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