x Preface. 



than as mere articles of food, have long commanded 

 much attention. Madame de Sevigny describes a re- 

 markable royal collation in a room hung with jon- 

 q nils ; and the Prince of letter- writers, Horace Walpole 

 Earl of Orford, condescends to write about ornaments 

 fashionable for dinner tables and desserts in his days. 

 " The last branch of our fashion into which the 

 close observation of nature has been introduced is our 

 desserts. Jellies, biscuits, sugar-plums, and creams, 

 have long since given way to harlequins, gondoliers, 

 Turks, Chinese, and shepherdesses, of Saxon China. 

 But these, unconnected, and only seeming to wander 

 among groves of curled paper and silk flowers, were 

 soon discovered to be too insipid and unmeaning. By 

 degrees, meadows of cattle, of the same brittle 

 materials, spread themselves over the table ; cot- 

 tages rose in sugar, and temples in barley-sugar ; 

 pigmy Neptunes in cars of cockle-shells triumphed 

 over oceans of looking-glass, or seas of silver tissue. 

 Women of the first quality came home from Che- 

 venix's laden with dolls and babies, not for their 

 children, but their housekeeper. At last, even these 

 puerile puppet-shows are sinking into disuse, and 

 more manly ways of concluding our repasts are 

 established. Gigantic figures succeed to pigmies ; 



