and put some of it into a mould in ice. Then
fill up with the peaches and jelly alternately, and
freeze it. Medlar jelly is also by no means
contemptible.

The fruit cheeses are very pleasant rich
conserves for dessert. They can be made with
apricots, strawberries, raspberries, pineappple,
peach, vanilla, or chocolate. The system of
cheese-making is in all cases the same. The
fruit is pounded with sugar, and rubbed through
a tammy, then melted isinglass and thick cream
are added, whipped over ice and put into the
mould.

As for creams, you may flavour them with
lemon, chocolate, vanilla, orange flower, tube
rose, or what you will. You add the yolk of an egg
for every cupful; but after all there is no flavour
so exquisite and pastorally delicious as the plain
old-fashioned custard, with the homely brown
dust of nutmeg mantling on its rich yellow
surface. If living near Richmond let the reader
who values his friends, and plans a party, never
forget "the maids of honour"—those exquisite
mouthfuls said to have been invented to please
the palate of that epicurean and rather dull and
selfish sovereign, Queen Anne. It is pleasant,
when eating them, to remember that Swift may
have snapped them up in the intervals of his
bitter sayings, that that terrible virago, Sarah,
devoured them contemptuously, and that all the
pretty and witty of Anne's court approved of
them hugely, vastly.

But we have grossly slighted our English
puddings, and to close our series without expatiating
on them would be to prove ourselves unworthy
of the very name of Englishmen. Yet first a
word of comment on Mrs. Rundell's economics
of pudding cookery. Her golden rules may be
codified without at all lessening their value.
Take care the cloth the pudding is boiled in is
clean, or it will taint the pudding. Eggs being
now everywhere expensive, use, if you wish to
be saving, snow (when you can get it; it don't
always snow just when you want it), two
spoonfuls of fresh table-beer, or one of yeast
will do just as well. The cloth must be tied
loose for bread puddings, tight for flour.
Raisin wine is as good as sherry for puddings;
always use salt. Half an hour for every half a
pint is the standard time for boiling. The
materials must always exactly fill the basin.
A mealy potato grated while hot, and beaten up
with milk, adds to the lightness of plum
puddings.

We dwell upon these rules because they tend
to economy, and that is a virtue usually in very
small favour with those expensive and reckless
men, the writers of cookery books. They revel in
puddings made with macaroons and brandy, &c.,
the expense of which makes one shudder.
Almond pudding, again, made with wine, eggs,
grated lemon, butter, cream, and sugar, is a
capital pudding; but too costly for family use.
Far cheaper is marmalade pudding, made with
Seville orange marmalade poured upon a rasped
French roll, porcupined with blanched almonds,
and eaten with whipped currant jelly. This is
a very tidy pudding. Sago, rice, and all other
seeds, should be soaked an hour before using,
to remove the taste of earth or of the packing
cloths. Bread-and-butter pudding is improved
by sliced citron and a custard sauce, with eggs,
pimento, and a trifling drop of ratafia; soak
the slices before baking. A Welsh cook we
once had used to spread jam over the bread and
butter, to the great advantage of this pudding.
The custardy flavour of the bread imbued with
the flavour of strawberry or raspberry is highly
pleasant to poor humanity.

What can we say that has not been already
said of orange and lemon pudding, amber
pudding, baked apple pudding, cranberry, Swiss,
oatmeal, barley, Dutch rice, new college,
cheese, brown bread, biscuit, batter, muffin,
Duke of Cumberland's, Nelson, potato, carrot,
and chestnut? Among the old-fashioned,
simple-hearted old puddings, formerly common
even in London eating-houses, cowslip and
tansy were the most characteristic. Both have
little claim to be remembered, except on the
plea that Shakespeare, no doubt, partook of
them. In both cases the tansy and cowslip
have about as much to do with the puddings as
the flint stone has with the proverbial broth.
The pounded tansies are mixed with eggs and
cream, spinach juice, Naples biscuits, sugar,
white wine, and nutmegs. The mixture is
thickened over the fire, then put into a dish
lined with paste and baked. It does not sound
well, we must confess, and nevertheless it was
a current pudding—we mean a popular pudding,
twenty years ago. In the other and more
venial case you cut and crush a peck of innocent
cowslips with Naples biscuits and three
pints of cream. When boiled, you add sixteen
eggs, a little cold water, and half a cup of
milk and sugar. You bake and serve up
sugared, but not for us, say we. The cowslip
flavour, redolent of summer mornings, could
never survive whipping, that we feel sure.
There are some puddings, like green grape, ripe
gooseberry, and blackberry, that do not deserve
the names of puddings. They are only phantas-
magorial experiments. Dumplings rouse tender
memories, and open a wide field, but we have
no room to expatiate on them, nor should we
like to rouse the jealousy of Oxford by praising
Suffolk, or of Suffolk by praising Norfolk. A
hearty man, with a trooper's appetite, can alone
eat dumplings. They are not at all the "jockies"
for men of intellect and epicures.

Pancakes and fritters—delicious words.
Lives there a man with soul so dead, whose
heart has never leaped up to see either a rainbow
in the sky or a pancake in its aerial somersault?
Buckwheat curd and potato fritters are
worth trying. Rice pancakes are said to be
respectable. Pancakes are far too serious things
to be eaten often. They should be reserved
for Shrove Tuesdays and birthdays. They
hardly seem to count as realities with strong
boyish appetites; and we have known youngsters,
irritated by lemon and sugar, and the
excitement of perpetual hot and hot relays