When it comes to fish, it is allowed that we are not an insular people for nothing.  There are other forms of good living that Paris knows not of, so to speak, at first hand, native to England.  Turtle soup, turbot and lobster sauce, a haunch of venison, and a grouse, are, we may say without chauvinism, a “truly royal repast.”  But we incur the contempt of foreigners once more in the matter of wines.  To like sherry, the coarse and fiery, is a matter of habit, which would teach us to love betel-root, and rejoice in the very peculiar drink of the South Sea islanders.  Some purists include champagne in the same condemnation—­the champagne, that is, of this degenerate day.  When the Russians drank up the contents of the widow Clicquot’s cellars, they found a sweet natural wine, to which they have constantly adhered.  But Western Europe, all the Europe which, as M. Comte puts it, “synergizes” after light and positivism, has tended towards champagnes more or less dry.  The English serve this “grog mousseux” as a necessity for social liveliness, and have not come back to the sweet wine which was only meant to be drunk with sweets.  A Quarterly reviewer is very severe in his condemnation of a practice which will only yield to the stress of some European convulsion in politics and society.  These matters are like certain large reforms, they either come to pass without observation in the slow changes of things, or great movements in the world are accompanied by small ones in everyday life.  Dry champagne came in after the Revolution; it may go out after a European war, which will make wine either expensive, or, if cheap, a palpably spurious article.  “Monotony and base servile imitation” may be the bane of eating and drinking in England; but the existence of monotony shows that the English really do not care very much about dining considered as a fine art.  When they do care, they cover their interest in the matter decently, with the veil of humorous affectation.  They cannot spontaneously and sincerely make a business of it, as the French do in all good faith.  Even if they had a genius for dining, we doubt if a critic is right in thinking they should dine at six o’clock or seven at latest.  Whether in the country or in town, the business or amusement of the day claims more time.  Sportsmen, for example, in early autumn could not possibly return home by six very frequently, and in summer six o’clock may be so sultry an hour that the thought of food is intolerable.  Still, it must be admitted that the unawakened state of the market-gardener and the condition of English soups are matters deserving serious consideration.

AMERICAN HUMOUR.