through a cookery-book without finding some recipe which will -prove
an addition to the family dinner-table ; but Mr. Edward Spencer has seen fit to dilute his book with such masses of anec- dote that its perusal is singularly barren of results. There is indeed but " one halfpennyworth of bread to all this intolerable quantity of sack." The chapters on " Vegetables " and " Curries " are those in which most useful hints are to be found, for much of the space devoted to " Dinners " and " Luncheons " is taken up with denunciations of all French cookery. Plain English food is, of course, an excellent thing, and Mr. Spencer's " ideal " dinner of turtle soup, codfish with plenty of liver, and for sauce oysters scalded in their juice, grilled steak, golden plovers, and marrow-bones, is very good fare. But it would
be very expensive to dine on "plain English dishes" every day, as the essence of English cookery is a very fine large
joint or slice of fish cooked quite plainly. Now, to live on this -daily the diner would be obliged to be content with having a hot dinner on Sundays and Wednesdays, and eating up the cold meat
on the other days, for " it would be a sin," says the advocate of
British fare, " to mess up splendid meat like this by recooking it." 'Otherwise this plain English food would cost a very great deal of money. And even were expense no object the monotony would be terrible. There is a chapter at the end of the book on Daylight Drinks," which describes an infinite variety of "cock- tails." The names are funny enough, but it is a pity that neither the " corpse reviver " nor the American " gum tickler " are mentioned.
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