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Finery or Asceticism, is not a thing which can be endured. Still, as self-government is the vital principle of Popular Concord, it seems to me that Simplicity and Plenty in the larder and at the table will suffice as the general rule of entertainment, if our members will clear their heads of all possible rivalry with the luxurious establishments (some of which live on, like other Personages of Fashion, by grace of their creditors), or unless we are so unlucky as to entertain" unawares," not Angels, but Dandos.— The profoundest gastronomists, I might add-with Mr. Walker of "The Original" at their head-will bear me out in comforting those who demand good eating, by assuring them that they need lose nothing, because they have not a Soyer to contrive Sampayo souffles and Cerito creams, this new epigramme with olives in honour of an Elihu Burritt, or the other paté de Billingsgate to solemnise the glorious day when Game Laws shall have "died the death."-They will stand by me in saying, that there are beauties in "plain roast and boiled, ," which Englishmen love and Frenchmen do not hate!-But I scorn this tampering with epicurism: since refined Selfishness may go as far and prove as troublesome when in quest of simplicity as of Apician combinations. I trust in the good sense of "The Committee of Taste," that it will forbear from wooing Self-indulgence, while it gratifies every reasonable desire-I trust in that gentlemanly conformity to circumstances, on the part of the members, which honourable persons will ever show and in which, moreover, they will find the permanency of their home, and the comfort of "their board" (to use the prim phrase of the Idyllists) assured.

Yet, permit me, while on the important question of meats, and the simplicity thereof, episodically to call attention to one or two very profound truths. It is possible that as a nation, we English are only beginning to emerge from barbarism in our culinary usages. The ancient English Cook was a hot and hasty creature: given to the administration of "many pepper" (as a German friend of mine phrased it) in her sauces; beginning to cook her dinner at the time when a French practitioner was concluding the process: and sustaining her life in face of a furious fire by aid of cordials and strong waters. There was no science save" rule of thumb "-and as little economy in her proceedings. The Gallic Artist, on the other side, was a man of parts," and as many words as parts,—in a white nightcap: whose "visions of the head upon his bed" were of the afternoon's dinner: and who began to light the charcoal under his

earthen pipkins, and to "taste and try " his compounds, early in the day-being philosophically aware, as a great authority once said, that "whereas Man may improvise a Sonnet-an Angel cannot extemporize a Soup!" Hence, with a full and experimental consciousness of the hideous things which may be said concerning the filth of a French kitchen-and the "strange flesh laid upon the

table there is no denying that there is much to be gathered from our neighbours, if we will only lay by our insensate pride in roastbeef and plum-pudding. Saving of money, sparing of health, cultivation of temperance, maintenance of temper and mutual respect, are involved more than appears at first sight, in the planning of the Cook's domain, and in her cultivation of something better than the patriarchal pig-headed resistance to "foreign messes. Every now and then, the march of events makes a breach in the wall of even kitchen prejudice. A Fortune comes home from China; and behold new vegetables for the pot! There is a movement among the makers of coffee-pots which forces us nearer the strength of the Turks, or the clearness of the Palais Royal. From time to time, too, Mother Nature takes part in the compulsory diffusion of knowledge. Blighting our potato crop, she drives us upon the Brahmin's resource, rice; or biddeth us lean on the staff of Brother Jonathan, which is maize. Would it not be well, then, while we disclaim all pretentions to a Ude, or to a Soyer with his poetry and philanthropy and his picture gallery, to provide, in our arrangements, for culinary enlightenment; to keep a corner in our cellar, (figuratively), for beverages, which, thirty years ago, the men of England, were used to speak of as philtres or dangerous draughts-fatal to our honesty and nationality. Port and Porter are stately and stout drinks ;-John Barleycorn and John Bull have an affinity which will not be dissolved while the life and soul of London hold together. All due reverence and respect be paid them :-but let us not for this, sour with our contempt, the wines of the Black Forest, or the Rhine, or the South of France; nor because Free Trade is making them cheap, and Foreign Enterprise "laying down," year by year, a better quality, at a more attainable figure, speak of them as "trash," "verjuice," rubbish only fit to make vinegar of. We can no more shut out the new liquors, than we can exclude "those foreigners." Let us, therefore, meet them, make the best of them and keep as far from stupid bigotry, as from greediness or epicurism; remembering, all the while, that, whereas a Kitchen

Committee represents its constituents, it is, also, not without power to influence them. The consequence of meats and drinks to the formation and development of national character-and to the cementing of club concord, is a subject, at once too delicate and momentous to be "fillipped away at the end of a paragraph calling for a Charles Lamb, or a Titmarsh. Failing these greater lights, I may, some future day, trouble the world with my tediousness over the matter of Macaroni, and my " fifty reasons why every house should have, if not its "fowl in the pot" so liberally desired by the French King-its pot au feu, which the French Cottager can manage. But that must be when space and leisure are more plentiful than at present. A hurried consideration of table matters tendeth, as the Abernethys will also declare, towards indigestion. Banter apart-whether as regards expense or comfort-or the easy working together of masters and servants, the matters I have been trifling with, claim in their arrangement, a sense, a liberality, and an experimental knowledge, which do not belong to the old English World below stairs.

And now, from material to intellectual provision:-from the Bill of fare, to the table in the Reading Room. There is small doubt that the tastes of the generality will be sufficiently consulted in the furnishing of this:-financial limits being duly respected. One could make a list at a moment's call of the periodicals and productions sure to be in request. One knows what newspaper will never be "out of hand "what" serial publications will be thumbed into a state of ruin which might content the author of authors most desirous of popular acceptance! So that, to pretend to offer contributions towards a list of " things wanted," would be a labour very nearly as absurd as the ordering of banquets à la Barmecide for the benefit of sturdy and wellappetized youths, resolute to "dine off the joint" at once heartily and cheaply. But I have my crotchet, about what may be called the furniture-reading of a Cheap Club, which I will freely give up to the ridicule of all "good laughers:"-content, if one sober thinker sees something in it. Our Club is not a party business: not a "Crow Club where the person croaking the loudest against Popery is the great man of the assembly-not an artisan's association, where he who, like Sir Walter Scott in the coach, is unable to say something about "bend leather, is set down as a dull fellow-neither is it a gathering of which "the Duke” and “Lord

Nelson" are the two shibboleths: still less a circle of travellers, excluding everything which moves near the home-centre, and esteeming worthy him alone who has climbed the Himalaya Mountains, or "looked in" at Sarawak, or fraternised with the Vladika of Montenegro.-It is a gathering of men of all sorts and conditions, bound together by a feeling of the duty, the necessity, and the feasibility of progress; and, therefore, desiring information as much as sympathy, from the world without. I should like to see this, in some sort, practically, not picturesquely expressed, in the Reading Room. I should like that some small, yet constant provision should be made for hearing "the other side." It seems a Hibernian counsel to say that I am for having the paper which is "voted out," kept in " on principle!"-whether as a reminder of our own superiority, or an alterative when we wax arrogant-whether as an eye-hole through which we may peep into the enemy's camp, or a magnifier, turned full on our own beauties and blemishes. It seems to me that such a principle of selection, temperately, not fanatically recognised, must be productive of enlightenment and interest-must bring into the entire compound a flavour of independence, totally different from that quarrelsome haste, which makes A. never content save he is cat-echizing B's dog-ma-must, in short, redound to the good of every one concerned. The suggestion will be called Quixotic, random, a "strengthening of the hands of our oppressors," and many hard and half-true names besides ! No matter, it is now on paper; and if Mr. Goldthumb only be found to read it, in some contemplative hour when he is taking unusual pains over his trunk lining, he may retail it to his son, who may pass it off as his own when and wheresoever he pleases ;so but it be spread as a truth worth considering, that it may be as well, sometimes, to study the things we disagree, as well as those we agree, with.

The last matter of entertainment I shall here consider, is possibly the least important, because most beyond the sphere of ordinary. club-usage and routine; and to be dispensed with, without the stability or usefulness of the establishment being, in any respect, impaired. Old-fashioned members, indeed, will object to any set evening meetings or parties, as much as I object to the appellation soirée (a word, very like the copper lace on a stage-dress, methinks) But the number of old-fashioned members, who conceive that a Club means gregarious unsociability, will not, I fancy, be overwhelming; whereas, the number of those willing to enter

tain each other and to be entertained, is likely to increase, if the thing be proved practicable-without involving too much ceremony or too much familiarity.-Where there are large rooms, well-lighted, large parties seem a natural consequence; and to these the new scientific discovery is pretty sure to be brought, and at these the new design for a building, or the new pattern of manufacture, may be exhibited, without, in the slightest degree, trenching upon the province of the learned Societies, whose business it is-as some one has saucily said to be "dull and deliberative."

The first condition of a party is, that no one should be "bored." Hence, I have a certain fear of too long orations-of readings aloud-save they be mercifully administered. With many, I have observed, all such formal pleasures produce an immediate and rebellious desire to "express themselves in talk," which is sadly irritating to all parties. When money has been paid, an English audience will have its money's worth, and heroically exhibit its patience till the uttermost farthing has been "worked out,"-in this respect, however, yielding the palm to the Americans, who seem to have an appetite for lectures and preachments which nothing can satisfy and to the Germans, who will abide four hours of comedies so called the dreary pedantry of which is enough to drive a lively-spirited person distracted. But where there is no idea of "sale and barter," tediousness becomes an unpardonable offence; and Folly, made strong by fancied persecution and by the contagiousness of distaste, is apt to take matters into her own hands, and throw the best managed meeting into discord. Something of Spontaneousness is as necessary to Society, as brevity is to Wit.

While, however, too inordinate a quantity of Instruction is not to be let loose against innocent persons met for the purposes of amusement, let it never be forgotten, that unless there be a disposition to raise the tone of mixed society, it is apt to degenerate, till the better class of persons drops away from it; finding books at home, or the society of its own thoughts, better than "the crackling of thorns under a pot.' Let us never drivel to the dead level of fashionable Inanity which leaves the Drama of England alone and rushes to see half-a-dozen men with blackened faces, talking a gibberish which is the language of no people under the sun, and making uncouth grimaces and uncouth noises, under pretence of Music. To come to my point, when we deal with Art,let us especially remember that, in its pleasant