424 AN VmtAISINABLE TUDDING. 



may tliiiik it is : and by way of a sample of talent, I 

 will ask them to define a plum-pudding : they may 

 say they could do it merely by the six following words, 

 " a pudding Avitli plums in it." This certainly is a 

 plum-pudding ; but suppose I choose to make one with 

 only one plum in it, this would also be a plura-pud- 

 ding : if so, what becomes of their definition ? They 

 may say there never was one made with only one 

 plum in it : granted ; but that is no reason there 

 never may; and, in fact, let them try a school-pud- 

 ding ; they will find that by Avay of a great treat 

 they may get something very like it, and in these 

 hard times, but for Sir Robert Peel's tariff, they 

 would probably, ere this, have been treated with the 

 identical tiling itself. 



The mentioning a plum-pudding and a gentleman 

 in the same sheet may appear somewhat incongruous 

 I admit ; but the incongruity is not altogether so 

 great as may be at first imagined, as the latter very 

 often partakes of the former in one way, and I must 

 confess sometimes in another. In the first case, he is 

 a pudding-eating gentleman ; in the other, a pudding- 

 headed gentleman : but they bear a closer affinity 

 than this, inasmuch as it requires many good and ex- 

 pensive ingredients to make either a perfect plum- 

 pudding or a perfect gentleman. Cej^tes to make the 

 school-pudding, the ingredients are not usually great 

 in number or particularly choice in quality. Though 

 no pupil of Ude or Kitchener, I will venture to give a 

 receipt for a school-pudding : in fact, I could make 

 one. I Avill afterwards try my hand at a gentleman. 

 In the latter I may probably fail ; but if this dish 

 were produced by some one else, I think I could form 

 some faint idea of the style of man employed in its 



