CULINARY REFLECTIONS. 239 



mushrooms, mangoes, and bamboons. Pudding has, however, been 

 constantly esteemed as the product of our native ingenuity, and with 

 whatever adoration a plum-pudding be regarded, and however pain- 

 ful it may be to our feelings to detract, in the slightest degree, from 

 the high merits of a dish, on which national affection has been so 

 long placed, the fearful consequences of adopting an erroneous article 

 of food, tending by its rich and enticing qualities to propagate politi- 

 cal wrong, and to abet the wicked purposes of the foes to our inesti- 

 mable constitution, renders it a stern and peremptory duty to declare, 

 that the modern and foreign derivation of its principal and stimulant 

 ingredients, proves that it was beyond the use of our forefathers, 

 and that although Smyrna and Zante might, in former times, have 

 contributed raisins and currants, to its confection, yet spices were 

 little known of old amongst us, and the necessary insertion of rum 

 proves, that its best concomitant could have been attained but subse- 

 quently to the discovery of the West Indies, and the still later plant- 

 ing of the sugar-cane in its Islands. Some portion of returning sense 

 in the people, has induced the recent neglect of sandwiches, which 

 had their rise from the Lord whose name they bear, and who, when 

 First Lord of the Admiralty, being engaged for twenty-four hours in 

 play, without rising from his seat, ordered some broiled meat to be 

 placed between two pieces of toast, which served to support nature 

 without diverting his attention from the cards. The stakes for which 

 he played being enormous, great attention was attracted to the per- 

 formance, and his lordship's ingenious mode of refection soon became 

 popular. The name of lunch is probably a corruption of the slight 

 repast made by the monks in awaiting their dinner, and which was 

 termed <{ des onges" by the French, and fl das onge" by the Spaniards; 

 and if so, its very origin stamps it as unworthy. Having endeavoured, 

 however feebly, to establish the connection between the state of the 

 constitution and the constitution of the state, an easy and useful de- 

 duction may be made from the premises, and without intending an 

 offensive comparison, the repast provided for the nation, but now, by 

 our ministerial cooks, is scarcely dissimilar in character and result, 1 to 

 a banquet given a few years since in one of the Ionian Islands. Dr. C , 

 of the British Medical Staff, having been appointed, pro tempore, 

 inspector of the quarantine department, soon experienced the delight- 

 ful difference between comfortable and fixed quarters, a most respecta- 

 ble salary, official rank and influence, and the other pleasing appur- 

 tenances to a colonial appointment, as compared with frequent re- 

 movals from place to place ; frequent change of abode, and the hard 

 duties of his ordinary military situation. To secure such advantages, 

 policy and prudence dictated the propriety of a dinner to the big- 

 wigs by whom he hoped to be patronized, but the close and unexpen- 

 sive character of the Doctor induced many a deep and bitter sigh, ere 

 he could finally resolve upon the extraordinary pecuniary sacrifice a 

 banquet demanded, which would comprehend all his gains in the 

 office he had as yet filled. The promise of wealth and ease for life, 

 prevailed. Tickets to knight and baronet, general and colonel, trea- 

 surer and secretary, were issued. Wines, new, strange, and anoma- 

 lous to the medical palate, provided by Angelo, (the costly hotel- 



