“A perfectly original book of Cookery,” says Mrs. D. “would neither meet with, nor deserve, much attention; because, what is wanted in this matter, is not receipts for new dishes, but clear instructions how to make those already established in public favour.”  This reasoning is very just, for none but the most thankless of gourmands, or the gourmet who wished to affect the sorrows of the great man of antiquity,—­would sit down and weep for new worlds of luxury.  Good cookery is too rarely understood and practised to justify any such wishes; and to prove this, let the sceptic go through Mrs. Dalgairns’s 1,434 receipts, and then “tire and begin again.”  Our respected editress assures us that “every receipt has either been actually tried by the author, or by persons whose accuracy in the various manipulations[3] could be safely relied on.”

    [3] This is an unlucky word for a cookery book.  Why not say
        operations?  Mrs. D. Mrs. D! you have not escaped the scientific
        mania that is mounting from area to attic throughout this
        country.  Such a term as manipulation sounds well enough in Mr.
        Brande’s laboratory at the Royal Institution, but would be quite
        out of place in the kitchen of either of the hotels in the same
        street.  A footman might as well study the polarization of light
        whilst cleaning the drawing-room windows.

From a table of contents we learn that among them there are the following methods:—­

Soups                       105
Fish                        115
Beef                         70
Mutton                       31
Veal                         60
Gravies, Sauces, &c.        104
Puddings, Pies, and Tarts   263
Creams, Custards, &c.       134
Cakes and Preserves         182

—­what more can mortal man desire, “nay, or women either.”  Appended to them is much valuable information concerning the poultry-yard, dairy, brewery, kitchen-garden, bees, pigs, &c. so as to render this Practice of Cookery a truly useful and treasurable system of domestic management, and a book of matters-of-fact and experience.  The subject is too melting—­too tempting for us to resist paying this tribute to Mrs. Dalgairns’s volume.

* * * * *

“CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE.”

An appropriate April book, too controversial for extensive quotation in our pages, as the enumeration of its contents will prove.  They are half-a-dozen gracefully written sketches, viz. the Gipsy Girl, Religious Offices, Enthusiasm, Romanism, Rashness, and De Lawrence.  Half of these papers, as will readily be guessed from their titles, bear upon “the question,” and are consequently, as the publishers say, “not in our way.”  We are, nevertheless, proud to aver that the sentiments of these chapters are highly honourable to the heart of the writer as they are creditable to his good taste and ability.  He is, to judge from his book, a good man, one who is not so willing as the majority of us, to let his philanthropy remain