400 Dr. Granville’s Travels io St. Petersburgh. [Ocr. 
rixthaler, cornelian watch-keys like the pans of scales, profusion of massive rings 
on every phalanx, coarse linen, hair uncombed, and nails terminated by 
sable crescent, bespoke them members of that privileged class, which in many 
of the principal towns in Germany, I am sorry to be obliged to admit, do not. 
always combine the Chesterfieldian manners and neatness of person with their 
other excellent qualities of the heart and head, but whose peculiarities never 
strike the uninitiated so forcibly as at table. To all such, I would recommend 
as part of their education, a “season in London,” spent in the free inter- 
course with the best classes of society. I have frequently had occasion to 
witness the marvellous metamorphosis which such an experiment has pro- 
duced in many German and Italian noblemen who visit England with the 
benefit of excellent introductions. One hardly recognizes them again at the 
time of their departure, so thoroughly changed are their manners and general 
appearanee, by the result of example. The effects of such a change remain 
with them through life; and although on their return home they may for a 
time be considered as singular, the superiority of their address and the neat- 
ness of their persons, readily and advantageously distinguish them from the 
rest of their countrymen. 
“ Our dinner began with potage au riz, of which deep basinsful, with grated 
cheese, were speedily swallowed. To this succeeded, in single and orderly 
succession, plain boiled beef, with sour mustard, and a profusion of fermented 
red cabbage ; boiled carp, with its silvery scales in all their brilliancy upon 
its back; large balls, of a substance resembling hasty-pudding, light and 
savoury, swimming in a bowl of melted butter resembling castor oil, and 
eaten most voraciously by all present, with the addition of a sweet compéte de 
pommes. Chevreuil piqué au lard was next introduced, followed by some sort 
of fried fish. At last a boiled capon made its appearance, to which I, who 
had hitherto been a motionless as well as a silent spectator, eommended 
myself for a dinner ; and while thus engaged, I observed that fried parsley 
roots, hot and hissing from the pan, were received on the table with the 
approving exclamation, “ Das ist ganz vortrefflich!” This comedy had now 
lasted upwards of an hour, and I began to repent of my experiment. At last 
Dutch cheese, pears, and spunge biscuits, were laid on the greasy table-cloth ; 
coffee and liqueur were presented to some and not to others; and the “ con- 
vivii turbulenti,” after having rolled up their weekly napkin, and confined it 
within a ring of red leather, paid their moderate reckoning of half a rix- 
thaler (eighteenpence!) and departed, one after the other, in all the swagger- 
ing complacency which a full stomach is apt to inspire. 
“Surely, said I to myself, as I retired to my room, these gentlemen’s 
digestive organs cannot be of that class, for which Abernethy and Wilson- 
Philip, and Paris and Johnson have written their legislative codes of dietetics. 
Even within the singular, yet felicitous divergences which exist among those 
learned contemporaries, (each preaching an opposite sermon from the same 
text,) it would not be possible to find a place for such stomachs, as I had the 
leisure of a full hour to contemplate at the Weimar table @’hote. They seem to 
set at nought all statutes and regulations. The human caldron is daily loaded 
to the brim with the same ominous mixture above described, and which is not 
far different from that condemned by the gay author of the treatise on diet. 
Still chymification and chilification go on uninterruptedly. No hard liver, dys- 
pepsia, or morbid sensibility are produced, as I have taken pains to ascertain, 
and the general health proceeds uninterrupted. Something more, therefore, 
must needs exist in the physical question ‘of digestion, which my learned 
brethren have not touched upon—and such is in reality the fact. The for- 
mule which those authors have propounded for solving the general problem of 
digestion will not apply to, aud cannot explain, the many contradictory pheno- 
mena, which present themselves at every step in regard to food, nutrition, and 
disease, among the several civilized nations of Kurope. To lay down general 
rules for dietetics—to predict or threaten the same terrific catastrophe to 
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