tall of its height. However, she adds,
after all, mothers and nurses were chiefly
in fault, for, " by cloistering you up in a steel
or whalebone prison, they open a door to
consumption and crookedness."  Many years have
passed since this warning was given, and even
now how little is it attended to!

The very heading of the following chapter
shows how important the subject of which it
treats was considered. It is entitled, " Choice
observations for a gentlewoman's behaviour
at table."  The first rule is, "Never press
forward for a chief place, but seem to be
persuaded with some difficulty to be seated;"
then, " Neither be forward to carve; although
the mi-stress out of compliment, request you,
yet refuse." The lady guest may, it appears,
help any one near her to any of the side
dishes, taking care, however, not to present it
"on the point of the knife,"  but it being
" dexterously taken up by your knife or fork,
to be laid on a clean plate, and thus presented."
At the lady's own table, however, she will be
expected to carve the principal dishes, so
''take care and carve well, for I have at
dinner seen the good gentlewoman of the
house sweat more in cutting up a fowl, than
the cookmaid did in roasting it."  It is also
"very comely to use a fork, for then the
fingers will not be greased."  How evident is
it from this, that " the fashion of forks," said
to have been introduced some thirty years
before by Tom Coryat, of whimsical memory,
had not, even at the Restoration, become
thoroughly naturalised among us. " If chicken
broth be the first dish "— our forefathers at
this time seem to have had their fish brought
in with the second course—"and you would
help our principal guest, remember the best
piece is the breast. The legs and wings
are next, but in boiled fowl the leg is
preferred to the wing."  This chicken broth
was a standing dish at our greatgrandfathers'
dinners; indeed, the white chicken broth was
considered a dainty dish to set before a king,
Charles the Second preferring it to every
other kind of ''spoon meat," as soups were
then called. Hannah Woolley, in her subjoined
recipes, gives us two methods  of making
it. The most elaborate of the two shall be
presented to our readers, as a specimen of the
kind of cookery patronised at the court of
Charles the Second:

"Take three chickens, three pints of strong
broth, and a quart of white wine. Stew them
with a quarter of a pound of dates, a quarter
of a pound of white sugar, some mace, the
marrow of three marrow bones, and a handful
of white endive. Then take the yolks of ten
eggs, and thicken the broth therewith."   A
tolerably rich chicken broth this, with wine,
marrow,and sugar; but our forefathers from
the earliest times,  had emphatically a sweet
tooth, and it is amusing in looking over these
old cookery books, how certain we are to find
loaf sugar or " raisins of the sun," in every
made dish. The serving of these spoon-meats
was indeed easy enough; but with the
"pieces de resistance,"  the goose, the turkey,
sometimes the peacock, the lady carver's
literally hard work began. Then pinning up
her ruffles that they might not dip into the
gravy, and spreading the large napkin,
"bib-fashion," over the rich stomacher or
breast-knots, the fair carver stood up and sawed
away with the sabre-like knife at the huge
bird, and numerous are the directions here
given how to carve them, and how to serve
the best pieces to the principal guests.

"Of larger poultry the best piece is on
the breast, for roast pig the ears, the jaws,
and the crackling; for smaller fowls the
breast and leg. Of fish the head is the best."
Fish does not, however, seem to have been
greatly liked, and no wonder, since at the
happy Restoration the nation was directed by
royal authority duly to keep Lent, and then
they doubtless had enough of it.

But few kinds of fish were "presentable"
at genteel tables: thus, cod, salmon, sturgeon,
and carp, together with the only fish our
forefathers really seem to have taken kindly
to—eels— are the only fish mentioned here,
and strangely they seem to have managed
with them; the salmon and large eels were
baked, well stuffed with herbs and spice; the
sturgeon, or rather a piece, was stuck with
cloves and roasted; the carp was either
baked in a pie with " good store of sweet
butter, raisins of the sun, and orange peel,"
or put in the stew-pan with garlic and anchovies
and stewed in white wine; while the
cod— the head of which seems the only part
cared for— was boiled in wine and water, with
spices and sweet herbs, and served with
shrimps, poached eggs, and anchovies. This
last was, however, the favourite dish, and our
authoress tells us it was dressed in so expensive
a manner at some of the fish-ordinaries
then celebrated in London, that, a properly
dressed cod's head, in Old or New Fish
Street, hath made many a gallant's pocket to
bleed freely.  If a fish-pie be put before the
carver, then it is proper enough to use your
knife; but, if otherwise, serve it with your
fork and spoon—fish-slices were for a long
time after unthought-of— laying it handsomely
on a plate with sauce, and so present
it. But should there be olives on the table,
use your spoon, and not your fork, lest you
become the laugh of the whole table.

The duty of the mistress having been thus
set, forth, the guests are next instructed.
Never ask for dainties, and if pressed to
choose, say,—"Madam, I am indifferent: or,
Your ladyship's choice shall be mine."  We
should scarcely have expected to find the same
caution addressed to ladies, as had been given
to children just released from the nursery,
but, "cut or break your bread— do not bite
it;"  together with, " gnaw no bones with your
teeth,"  actually occur in this very chapter. It
would appear too, from the following direction
that although the general appointments