and ramme them up, which latter process
was to press them closely together after the
manner of brawn.

There is a comprehensive receipt for a
salad, which certainly would not be deficient
in flavour, especially of onions:—"Take
parsley, sage, garlic, chibolls (chives), onions,
leek, borage, mints, porrettes (a sort of leek),
fennel, cresses, rue, rosemary, and purslain,
lave and wash them clene, pike them, pluk
them smal with thine hond, and myngle them
wel with rawe oil, lay on vyneger and salt
and serve it forth." Few dishes seem to have
so littel varied as fritters, or, as it was spelt,
fruturs. "Take flowre and ayren (eggs), and
grynd peper and safron, and mak thereof a
batour (batter), and pare applis and kyt (cut)
them to brode pecys and kest them theryn,
and fry them in the batour with fresch grees
and serve it forth." Several of the herbs
above mentioned are seldom used, or indeed
grown now, and in this respect we moderns
have fallen behind, for by their aid our
ancestors made the most delicious cold and hot
drinks.

The word "make" in the following receipt
evidently has the sense of cook. "For to
make a lopister (lobster). He shall be rostyd
in his scalys in an ovyn or by the feer (fire)
under a panne and etyn (eaten) wyth vyneger."
It is difficult to make selections from
so much that is curious, and enough has
probably been said on this subject; we will
therefore only give one more example which
is somewhat startling. It contains instructions
for making tartys in applis, not appletart,
as will immediately be seen. "Take
gode applis, and gode spycis and figys, and
reysons and perys (pears), and whan they
are wel ybrayed (in a mortar), coloured with
safron wel, put yt in a coffyn, do yt forth to
bake wel." In order to calm apprehensions
of the timid, it may be stated, that a
coffyn in this instance is not what it is
popularly supposed to be, but a raised pie
without any top.

The old English cooks are surpassed by a
dish once presented to an English Ambassador
at the Court of the Emperor of Morocco.
It was brought by two men perspiring under
the load of a handbarrow, the contents of
which were an enormous china bowl filled
with the national dish called Cooscosoo. This
being deposited, was followed by an entire
sheep, skinned, but presenting the same
rotund appearance as it had done when
bleating in its native pastures. Incision
being made, however, a bounteous discharge
extruded of puddings, forced meats, mincemeats,
and indescribable etceteras in all
sorts of fantastic forms, ready dresssed.

However much we may have been amused
by the catalogue of viands constructed to
please the palate of the royal epicure by
the Roll of Cooks, we cannot lay it aside
without congratulating ourselves that, upon
the whole, culinary taste and skill have
improved; although there are many little
matters both of principle and detail in which
we might take very advantageous hints from
the ancients. "In the article of Eating (that
noble pleasure!) quoth the Adventurer,
going even further back into antiquity,
"who is thre so proper to advise with as
one who is aquainted with the kitchens of
an Apicius or an Heliogabulus! For though
I have a very high opinion of our present
taste, I cannot help thinking that the
ancients were our masters in expensive dinners.
Their cooks had an art amongst them which
I do not find that any of ours are arrived at.
Trimalchus's cook could make a turbot or an
ortolan out of hog's flesh. NIcomedes, king
of Bithynia, when he was three hundred
miles from the sea, longed for a John Dory,
and was supplied with a fresh one by his
cook the same hour." This sublime art of
the transmutation of flesh into fish has, indeed,
been lost to a degenerate race of cooks; but
the Adventurer continues naively, "I dare say
there are men learned enough in this
kingdom, under proper encouragement, to restore
to us this invaluable secret."

TALKING SHIPS.

There are a few lines of small print in the
daily newspaper, a list of Vessels Spoken
With, read day after day by many careful
eyes among us islanders. We do much
business on great waters, and the merchant who
thinks of his cargo, the mother who thinks
of her son, the wife who thinks of the
husband earning bread for her and for her little
ones by ploughing the waters, derive more
pleasure from three or four words in that
paragraph, whenever they can find them,
than from everything else contained in the
journal to which they may happen to refer.
"The Mary of Liverpool standing to the
westward, April the twenty-second, in
latitude forty-four N., longitude forty-one W.—
The Princess Royal for the south west, April
the twenty-ninth, in latitude forty-two N.,
longitude forty-one W." are sentences full of
comfort to some who know that  that Mary is
indeed their Mary, or the Princess Royal, the
veritable ship which holds what they most
prize uping earth.

But, is it really the Mary, is it really our
Princess, that was spoken with? Many ships
chartered may leave the port of Liverpool,
and there are many Royal Princesses
committed to the deep. At present, fully to
identify a seafaring Princess, one must know
her port of registry, the number and the year
of registry in that port, all which matters
have not to be told by writing or by word
of mouth, but by a significant display of
ribbons from the mast-head. When two
vessels out on the broad seas pass within
sight of each other, they talk together,
having flags for tongues, a code of signals for