larly issued with military precision, and as regularly inserted in the journal! In sooth, we will content ourselves with copying the colonel's own account of a Highland dancingmaster presiding at a ball at Dalmally.

-"But I shall never forget the arrogance of the master; his mode of marshalling his troops; his directions, and other mancuvres, were truly ridiculous: he felt himself greater than any adjutant disciplining his men, and managed them much in the same manner."

We mean no invidious comparison; but Colonel Thornton, who piques himself on the pomp and circumstance annexed to a capital sportsman, admits the poor dancingmaster's merit in his proper department, and that he danced the Highland fling with the true "Glen Orgue (he means Glenorchy) kick;" and we question whether the annals of his school might not afford as important and amusing information as the following specimen, taken at random from the colonel's journal:

"We ordered dinner, as we had done the preceding day, early. Tired of sitting in doors, I took my gun, and killed, hobbling about, two brace of snipes, and was returning home, when one of the pointers made a very steady point. I perceived by his manner that it was not a snipe: came up to him, was backed by the other dog, and they footed their game. I apprehended it would prove black game, not that I had seen any near here, but could not conceive what it could be, till coming into some thinly dispersed, but stinted alders, they both made their point complete; a wild-duck flushed, which I fired at, and saw drop. The dogs still maintained their point as usual; and, walking on to pick up the duck, lest he should get into the drains and give me some trouble to recover him, another rose, with which I was equally successful with my other barrel."-P. 100.

We were much amused with the colonel's recommendation to sportsmen, to keep one set of dogs for themselves, another to lend to their friends, p. 163. It reminded us of a gentleman who kept a case of razors for the use of those who unexpectedly spent the night in his house:-it was astonishing how deeply his friends deprecated the hospitality of the stranger's razor. We must not omit to mention, that the colonel takes due care decently to intimate his success in a sport to which all sportsmen are partial, from Abyssinian Bruce, who hunted elephants mounted on a brown horse, to the most sorry poacher that ever shot a hare at a gate by moonlight. Yet a more fastidious gallant

would have disclaimed to form designs upon 66 a wizen'd and smoke-dryed Highland woman, upwards of forty-five years old," p. 128; nor do we agree in his compliments to the unparalleled silver hair of a young lady, elsewhere and more respectfully mentioned; either the colonel's veneration for age must be extreme, or he valued the tresses of this Highland damsel for the same reason that he admired the fur of the white hare.

We do not intend to trace the colonel through his tour, in which we must remark that there is scarcely a Gaelic name properly spelled. Nay, even on the plain ground of the Lowlands, he makes strange blunders. He talks of fishing in the Teviot at Mindrum-Mill, p. 13, when, in fact, he was at least ten miles distant from that river, which he seems to have confounded with the Bowmont, a stream that is not even tributary to the Teviot, but falls into the Till. In like manner, he talks of those "uncommonly beautiful hills the Teviot," meaning, we think, the Cheviot mountains, p. 14. Surely this accomplished sportsman has heard of Chevy chase. In point of style, we think a bold British fox-hunter might have dispensed with many unnecessary French terms, as pallette for pallet, metier for art, jessois for jesses; and, instead of "reckoning, as the French express it, sans son hôte," might not the colonel have "reckoned without his host, as we say in England?"

The descriptions of the Highland landscapes which the colonel met with on his route, are very similar to what are usually found in books of the kind, abounding in all the slang by which tourists delight to describe what can never be understood from description. The accounts of abbeys, castles, antiquities, &c., are bolstered out by quotations from Pennant and Gray. Indeed, whole pages are borrowed from the former, without either shame or acknowledgement. The poetical scraps introduced are in general from wellknown authors, though the following, for aught we know, may be original:

"See the bold falconers strain up the lingy steep,

Dash through the junipers, down the valley sweep.
Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly,

When the fierce falcon cleaves the liquid sky."-p. 130.

We would like to know from a hawker of Colonel Thornton's high fame, whether falconers do actually run faster

than pigeons fly; and, if they do, whether it be absolutely necessary that the verse should halt for it. We have only to add, that the engravings from Mr. Garrard's designs are pretty; and we hope this tribute of praise will console that gentleman for the fatigues of a journey, performed like those of Mad Tom "on high trotting horses," which, according to Colonel Thornton, is the appropriate conveyance of an artist. By the way, we do not recognise Colonel Thornton's humanity (elsewhere displayed in saving a servant's life, and in attention to diminish the torture of his wounded game) in his treatment of Mr. Garrard, whom, after "gently reproaching him for his timidity, he persuaded to follow to a stone overhanging a precipice, where, had his foot slipped, it would have been his last sketch."

We bid adieu to Colonel Thornton in nearly the words of Shakespeare—

"Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;
Between two blades, which bears the better temper;
Between two horses, which doth bear him best;
Between two girls, which hath the merrier eye;

He hath, perhaps, no shallow spirit of judgment."

But whether those accomplishments will qualify him to delight or instruct the public as a writer, is a point which we willingly leave to his reader's determination.

ON TWO COOKERY BOOKS.*

[Edinburgh Review, July, 1805.]

It seems to have been a complaint familiar in the mouths of our ancestors, and which we have too often seen cause to re-echo in the present day, "That God sends good meat, but the devil sends cooks." The irritability, the obstinacy, and the perfidy of the present culinary race, indeed, obviously demonstrate their ascent from regions even hotter than those which they occupy upon earth; and, while the direct attacks of the arch-enemy are opposed and counteracted by the clergy, who may be considered as the regular forces to whom our defence is intrusted, it is with pleasure we see a disposition, in the learned and experienced among the laity, to volunteer against the hordes of greasy Cossacks whom he detaches to those quarters, as marauders upon our daily patience and our annual income.

In first entering the field upon this occasion, we had some difficulty to settle the rank of these auxiliaries amongst themselves, or, to drop the metaphor, we were at a loss, after considering the high claims to attention preferred by both publications, to which we ought to give the precedence in our critique. It is true, Mesdames Hudson and Donat prefer a bold claim to the grateful recollection of those who have regaled on their dainties. "It becomes them not," as they are modestly pleased to express it, "to judge of their own merit; but with honest confidence they appeal to a numerous list of subscribers, who have eat and judged of their works." In this passage there is some ambiguity.

1. The New Practice of Cookery, &c. By Mrs. HUDSON and Mrs. DONAT, present and late Houskeepers and Cooks to Mrs. BUCHAN HEPBURN, of Smeaton. 2. Culina Famulatrix Medicina; or, Receipts in Modern Cookery, with a Medical_Commentary, written by IGNOTUS, and revised by A. HUNTER, M.D.

If, by this intimation, it is meant that the subscribers actually eat the volume to which they subscribed, we, the reviewers, will frankly tell Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Donat, that, notwithstanding the evangelical authority which may be quoted for this literary diet, we cannot bring our stomachs to submit to it, especially as, in one sense, we are already obliged to devour many more works than we are well able to digest. On the other hand, if the judgment referred to was formed from actually partaking of the dishes analyzed in this volume, we only want the opportunity happily enjoyed by these subscribers, conscientiously to join in their verdict. Upon the slightest intimation, the long coach shall convey our critical fraternity to the hospitable mansion where these fair dames have presided, and do preside, over the good things of the earth; and then-fiat experimentum!*

By the same rule, although Ignotus resides at rather too great a distance for an inroad of this nature, yet an actual experiment might be usefully made on a Yorkshire pye, transmitted by the mail or wagon. And upon this fair system of practical knowledge did we propose to have decided the merits of these candidates for culinary renown, till we recollected the unlucky termination of a course of lectures on the art of cookery in this city, which was abruptly broken off by the indignant professor, in consequence of a hungry student having eat up a principal specimen, as it circulated through the class for the admiration, but not the consumption of the audience. Deprived, therefore, of this most agreeable mode of exercising our critical sagacity, we choose to arrange the precedence of these rival works upon the gallant principle of place aux dames; and we are convinced, that Ignotus and his editor, although the latter be M. D. F. R. S. L. & E., will, with their usual good-humour, give the front rank to the "present and late housekeepers and cooks to Mrs. Buchan Hepburn of Smeaton."

The prefatory advertisement to this book is too interesting to be suppressed. It shows at once the deep learning of

* [Mr., afterwards Sir George Buchan Hepburn, a Baron of Exchequer in Scotland, was much tickled with this passage; and he accordingly insisted on entertaining Mr. Jeffrey and a number of his critical associates in great splendor, at Dumbreck's Hotel; but Sir Walter Scott was unluckily prevented from being present at the feast which he had thus founded.]

VOL. II.-12