on the writer's desk, with injunctions from
the publisher to string them together by an
interesting narrative. Perhaps La Mère
Gigogne adopts this mode of exercising the
wits of juvenile authors; in proof whereof,
see the story of, and the illustrations to, Les
Deux Hommes qui se Pendent (The Two
Men who Hang themselves). The Almanac
of the Good Kitchen and of the Mistress of
the House, drawn up with the assistance of
the hotel-masters and chiefs of the kitchen
of the first houses in Paris, makes the water
come into your mouth as it passes in review
the dainties of every month in the year,
pronouncing judgment, affirmative or negative,
on a dish, suggesting delays and dallyings
with certain delicacies, or boldly advising to
snatch others in their prime. If April be
the pleasantest time of the year, it is also the
most ingrate in fowls, game, vegetables, and
fruit. May is the month of flowers, but not
yet of fruits. It is more agreeable to poets
and lovers than to cooks and gourmands; its
sins are redeemed to a slight degree by its
opening the door to mackerel, green peas,
and amiable pigeons. Butter, from spring
grass, is in all its glory. In August, good
cheer languishes; people are driven to
discount their winter bills of fare by eating
little rabbits, leverets, and turtle-doves—
veritable infanticides. In September fresh-water
fish is excellent; oysters, according to
the proverb, are eatable, but the true
amateur will wait till December. Game is
already good, but it will be better in the
following months. In October, alimentary
enjoyments become numerous and vivid.
Beef has spent the summer in getting fat,
mutton in gaining succulence; veal, less
delicate than in spring, is nevertheless not to
be despised. Fresh sea-fish is resplendent.
In December, you have every possible
resource of the butchery and the charcuterie,
or pork-and-sausage art; you have your
choice of poultry, game, and venison; and
now is the time to cause to be sent to you
the famous pâtés of Strasbourg, of Toulouse,
of Amiens, of Chartres, of Perigueux, and of
multitudinous other savoury towns. The
year is not long enough, at the present late
date, to taste all the good things of the
Almanach de la Bonne Cuisine. Try, by
way of testing the excellence of its receipts,
the fillet of beef with wine of Madeira, the
oeufs à la neige, or snowy eggs, or the cake à
la Madeleine.

Other forms of indulgence are cared for by
the Smoker's and Snufftaker's Almanac.
There is a Gardener's Almanac—that is,
there are several; an Almanac of the Navy;
an Almanac of Games of Society; there is
an Almanac of Literature, the Theatre, and
the Fine Arts, with a dramatic and literary
history of the year by the prince of critics,
Jules Janin, and mounting to the high price
of fifteen centimes. A dynasty which wisely
appreciates the value of universal suffrage
does not disdain to be glorified by a Petit
Almanach Imperial. Finally, to push aside
a crowd of competing candidates, many
periodical publications choose to wind up the
year by publishing an almanac of their own.
It suffices to name the Almanac of the
Figaro and tho Almanac of the Magasin
Pittoresque as representatives of that popular
and populous tribe who help to pass a leisure
moment pleasantly.

The roots of this prolific and perennial
almanac-tree—which rivals in antiquity
the venerable orangers of the Tuileries—
are mostly planted in Paris soil, and
almost always in tufts and clusters, which
may in part account for the inferiority
remarked in the crops of the last few years.
A sturdy bunch of roots grows in the
Rue de Seine, number eighteen, in the
premises of a publisher named Paguerre, from
which literary stool or stump there springs
the sap which causes no less than fifty or
sixty different almanacs to blossom, swell,
and attain their full growth—not to mention
the house's dealings in almanacs published
at other establishments—forming, altogether,
an odd lot of merchandise which, like fruit
at the Central Halle or at Covent Garden,
have their different prices, wholesale and
retail, according to the customer and the
time of day. And yet, if you enter Monsieur
Paguerre's premises from the street, all you
may chance to see will be books on shelves
and books in bundles, with a little boy in a
blouse to keep the almanacs from flying
away, like the days and weeks which they
chronicle, and two ladies sitting at a desk
behind a counter, absorbed in the interesting
pages of a ledger. Their position prevents
your ascertaining whether they are
blue-stockings or no. The stud of authors,
printers, prophets, poets, calculators,
illustrators, and binders must be curious to
behold, if we could get at them. But,
probably, much of the work is done by
machinery. Almanacs may be ground in
mills, or spun, or cast in moulds; which
would account for the sort of manufacturing
monopoly and the defects arising from want
of competition, to which there appears a
tendency in the most recent generations of
the almanacs which are issued in shoals.

Another productive almanac-bed exists
in the Rue des Grands-Augustins, thriving
under the culture of Monsieur Delarue, who
has given us an Almanac-Manual of Health
followed by a treatise on the Diseases of the
Soul. We here find two scraps of good
advice: To take as few remedies as possible,
and to call in the doctor if anything serious
is the matter. This is modest in an almanac
of so old a standing; for it appears that in
the middle of the sixteenth century, just
three hundred years ago, the celebrated
Rabelais, Curé and Doctor at Meudon, near
Paris, published, under the protection of
Cardinal Dubellay, his first Almanac of