

MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 515 



rasites 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 oc- 

 casion to visit his estates in the provinces, he sent on the chef and his assist- 

 ants and casserols in a van some days before him, with orders to wait for him 

 at a town near the foot of some mountains where the carriage road ended. 

 When the prince reached the appointed place, his first enquiry was for 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-de-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 batterie 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 

 turned round now and then to cry, ' Have a care of those casseroles ! Cook, 

 mind what you are about !' But at a point where the path had turned round 

 the shoulder of a rock, which 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 fallen over the precipice into the 

 torrent below. Pale, and with his knees knocking against his saddle, he 

 turned back to see what it was, exclaiming as he went, ' The cook ! the cook ! 

 holy Virgin, the cook!' 'No, your excellency,' replied a voice along" the 

 line, ' it is Don Prosdocimo!' 'Ah! only the chaplain,' said the prince, 

 God be thanked!' 



" Montmor. It is quite natural that Paris, which boasts so many excellent 

 cooks, should have a- reasonable number of parasites and diners-out. There 

 indeed the latter art has been systematised in that excellent and useful little 

 book entitled ' L'art de diner en ville.' 



" In the old days of the Bourbons, few of the French parasites were more 

 notorious than Montmor, who was, however, a man of wit as well as a scho- 

 lar and glutton. 



" One day that Ligniere attacked him about his continual dinings-out, he 

 said, 'What would you have me do? I am so pressed!' 'I believe you,' 

 rejoined Ligniere, ' nothing is more pressing than gourmandise.' 



" On another occasion, he was asked why he ran so eagerly after good din- 

 ners and festivals ; 'Because they will not run after me,' he replied, and ^hen 

 added this ingenious piece of etymology ; ' Our ancestors called their feasts 

 festins, from the Latin verb festinare, to hurry or make haste, in order to show 

 that people ought always to make haste in going to them.' " 



These two volumes of "Table Talk," however much they may show the ce- 

 remony of preparation and smell of the lamp, are well worthy of perusal ; and 

 as we are well assured that the stories may be depended on for truth, we shall 

 not be guilty of too much confidence, if we sincerely recommend them to the 

 notice of all our laughter-loving readers. 



POLITICS. 

 Progress of the Nation in its Social and Economical Relations from 



the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. By G. R. Porter. 



12mo. Knight. 



IT has been said by some foreign visitor, we forget by whom, that " the En- 

 glish are a nation of shopkeepers who care only for the realities of life." We 

 glory in such an imputation. It is only within the last century that our 

 countrymen have found out where their real strength lies, in their manu- 



