good as if made with gravy meat." This
might be followed by the oyster sausages,
described above, or by "pulled fish," a
prodigious composition of fish with "all the bones
taken out," mixed with cream, and flavoured
with ketchup and anchovy sauce, stewed with
bread-crumbs, basted with butter, and
salamandered "just before you serve it up." The
pulled fish disposed of, a shift might be made
to sustain nature on the lobster pudding, with
which we have already made acquaintance, or
some other of the "made dishes" of which
there is, as we have seen, a choice of twenty-
seven. Then there are the twenty-one egg
preparations to fall back upon; the "curried
eggs," the "eggs with forcemeat balls," the
"cheese, shrimp, and oyster omelettes," or the
omelette prepared with macaroni, a very
pleasing composition indeed, as described in
the Manual. A course of vegetables—twenty
modes to choose from—would come next. A
potato pie made with potatoes sliced very
thin, with chopped onions between each layer,
with two ounces of fresh butter cut into little
bits, with the yolks of four eggs boiled hard,
covered close with puff-paste, a table-spoonful
of mushroom ketchup being "poured in
through a funnel," and the whole baked for an
hour and a half, might follow. This, or
the dish known to "externs" as cauliflower
"au gratin," and infinitely savoury, would do for
a vegetable course, and would naturally be
succeeded by a selection from the forty-three sweet
dishes to which the concluding pages of the
Manual are devoted, and among which are
included almond pudding; apricot souffle;
Genevoise paste; Italian cream; solid syllabub; and a
host more of puddings and pies, and creams,
and jellies, and cakes, and biscuits, each more
ravishingly delicious than the other. Nor must
it be forgotten, that to render all the different
preparations of which this "maigre" dinner is
composed more attractive than they are already
made by the savoury nature of their integral
parts, there is that remaining list of thirty-
four sauces at the disposal of the group of
ascetics who are punishing themselves around
their imaginary board—Dutch sauce for fish,
piquant sauces for the entrées, white sauces
for vegetables, orange sauce or cream sauce for
the sweets, and some besides which seem suited
to anything or everything, and nice enough to
render water-gruel itself a joyous compound.
This "Lenten entertainment" would conclude
with an anchovy toast, or a plate of devilled
biscuits, for the preparation of each of which
stimulating condiments, the Manual gives
directions; the whole to be followed by any
amount of good wine; it being expressly
stated at the commencement of this curiously
anomalous compilation that "no fluids, unless
such as by their quality or substance have the
character of animal food," are to be looked
upon as breaking a fast.

It is difficult to conceive, that people with
ordinarily constructed palates can by possibility
look forward with any thing short of absolute
satisfaction, to the approach of those particular
seasons to which these good things are
considered appropriate. One cannot help picturing
to oneself the delight of tbe younger members
of a family especially, when the maigre
days are coming round. No more coarse, veiny
shoulders of mutton, or greasy loins. No more
suet puddings with thinly scattered raisins.
"Now," one can imagine these youngsters
exclaiming, "now for the oyster sausages and the
lobster puddings, the scollop macaroni and the
shrimp omelette, the potato pie and the
marmalade pudding. Now for the savoury sauce
with the fish, and the orange sauce with the
sweets." To say truth, it seems as if the author
of the Manual himself were not always able to
suppress some feeling of this kind. We have
already observed his touching anxiety for the
serving of everything in a comfortable condition
of heat, in order that it may reach the
ascetics for whom he is providing, while at its
best; and a very cursory examination of the
collection, will show that our author is quite
as anxious that his dishes should lose no
particle of flavour that can be imparted to them,
as that they should come to table piping hot,
or icy cold, as the case may be. He speaks
openly of a certain composition made of
pounded cheese as "excellent," and in treating
of the best way of preparing anchovy toast, he
says, of the last method suggested, that "it is
still better" when fried in a particular manner
which he mentions. Of one especial treatment
of Jerusalem artichokes, too, he asserts that it
is "much admired," which one would say was
a reason for not partaking of it on a fast day.
This is a "nice" dish for breakfast, is his candid
—and, let us add, perfectly truthful—estimate
of buttered eggs: while of another composition
he opines that it "is a tasty dish for collation
on fasting days," which sentence, with its close
juxtaposition of the words "tasty" and "fasting"
may be taken as a thoroughly good specimen
of the volume.

The word collation, mentioned above, may,
perhaps, need a word of explanation for the
benefit of the uninitiated. It is a dodgy,
evasive sort of expression, and seems to be used
to indicate a dodgy and evasive kind of repast.
"Besides the principal meal," says our Manual,
"usually taken at noon, a collation is allowed
in the evening. At the former, the quantity is
not limited; at the latter, the quantity (except
on Christmas-eve, when it may be doubled)
should not exceed eight ounces." And then
comes the following clause—a postscript not
without significance. "For any reasonable
cause, the collation may be taken at noon, and
the principal meal in the evening." In other
words, you may have an eight-ounce luncheon
(a good-sized egg weighs only two ounces and
a half) in the middle of the day, and a dinner
of unlimited quantity, and consisting of any of
the good things enumerated in the pages of the
Manual, at your usual dinner hour in the evening;
and all this, by the exercise of a very
moderate amount of dodging and evasion.

Dodging and evasion everywhere. Let your
hair shirt be made with the down from a kitten's