world, it teaches but by halves, and the relations of man to his fellows it teaches not at all. Extensive and familiar usage in society is as necessary to complete one's psychological education as one's social. The metaphysical and moral systems of those bookmen who have gone from the college to the hermitage, are necessarily scarcely more true than a description of the ocean would be by one who had only seen it in calm weather. But it is the misfortune of the broken state of man that every thing is ruptured and detached; the experiments are in one place, and the results stated in another, one who has not seen the premise makes the conclusion, and causes and consequences lie in different hands. What a magnificent creature would be one man made out of all men! little less than God: if the partial knowledge of one could be added to that of another, the suggestion of one brought to enlighten the learned doubts of another, if one could reason on what another has felt and seen, and all the trials, conjectures, observations and surmises of all men brought to one focus, what a world-lightening star that focus would be! Light is combination, and so is truth.

A few weeks after the conversation alluded to in the last chapter, I had accepted an invitation to dine with a gentleman who held among his equals meridian distinction in that meridian art. Mr. Benton was one who had meditated with that earnest and chastised devotion which so great and elevated a subject demands, on the best mode of dining; and it is paying but a merited compliment to the genius and study of this good man, to declare that he understood the subject better, and practised it with more success than any person I have ever met with. At various times I have been favoured with his views upon this interesting subject; for, though not obtrusive in his proselytism as most discoverers are, Mr. Benton was always glad when an opportunity occurred of disseminating correct notions on this important topic, and he had none of that selfishness which might impel him to conceal from mankind what is necessarily never alien to humanity. But that timidity which is the fatal Cleopatra of genius, that proud resilience from the homage of the vulgar, which makes greatness splendid and impractica

ble, kept him always from appearing before the public. "He died and made no sign;" and the sauntering traveller as he steps carelessly over his modest grave, little knows that he treads above the remains of one whose genius the shade of Lucullus might venerate, and before whose labours the star of Orleans might dim its glories.

When I have sometimes expressed to him the sense which I entertained of his valuable researches, and the hope which I cherished that he would not suffer his discoveries to perish with him, "I confess that I have sometimes thought," he would reply, "that what you are pleased to call my discoveries are not altogether without value, nor without interest; as indeed nothing can be that regards a science which, to say the least of it, is indispensable. My regard for the welfare and melioration of my fellow-creatures, has sometimes impelled me to wish that an easy and safe method presented itself of conveying to the world at large, some suggestions which the kindness of my friends has induced me to fancy not entirely valueless, and to perform that duty which every one owes to his race, by handing down to posterity what might be a 'possession for everlasting' of culinary metaphysics. I have sometimes thought of publication, and indeed, I have employed some occasional hours in a few past years in the composition of a small volume on the subject of cookery; but independently on the reluctance which I feel to intrude upon the grave world a book which must necessarily be ungraceful in style, and insufficiently supplied with learning,-which, at least, from my want of familiarity with the pen, would lack that melody of words and harmony of sentences, that Ciceronian charm of aptly balanced language, which would be required in treating of this, the first and most finished of the fine arts,-independently on this personal objection, which my vanity will not attempt to deem slight, there is a greater one inherent in the attempt itself; I mean the combat which in its tender veal-like infancy it must sustain with those butchering critics and reviewers who ever stand at the gate of knowledge, pen (knife) in hand; for these gentlemen. rudely, gracelessly, and unreasonably oppugning and running counter to the precept of the im

mortal Louis Eustache Ude, to whom be honour, long life, and the gratitude of grateful men!"

"Amen, and amen!" cried I.

"Opposing, I say, that precept of His, which forbids us to slay a calf in its tender youth, but to sheathe the knife till his beef-hood shall be attained; they rush savagely upon a scarce-fledged writer, and kill, serve him up with a garni of sauce, before he has grown robust by age. Whether it be, as Goethe conjectured, that by some personal misconstruction of mind; by a peculiar obliquity in their moral constitution; by the frame of their mental powers; by the very condition of their existence-these people are prevented from telling the truth, certain it is that such a thing as a generous and genial criticism is as rare as half-boiled beef. To me, much reflecting upon these matters, it has appeared that the evil arises from the unfortunate position of these anti-authors: for authors and professional critics hold much the same relation to one another that England does to France; a relation, according to Mr. Fox, of national enmity. They have adapted the lying maxim, that ridicule is the test of truth, where in fact, it is the greatest enemy truth has ever had; being much such a test as proving a sword upon a stone, trying a liquid by evaporation, or searching for vitality with a scalpel; whatever may be the result, the object examined is destroyed for ever. They have let in the laughers into the gardens of Philosophy; the baying hounds into the still coverts of the ruminating stag. And they are sure to be supported by the populace, for the poulace loves to demolish; I never heard of a mob assembled to construct. The more I consider this affair of laughing, the more absurd and unworthy it appears to me. But the reviewers can do nothing else, being like those tormented spirits, the ghosts of scoffers, described in an ancient legend, who are condemned to expiate their sins by grinning painfully through all eternity. Similar is the critic's destiny; for, humanity and the fresh feelings of unshackled sympathy being dead within them, they become even as dead men, and like skeletons deriding humanity; and they thrust forward their ever

grinning visages into the Egyptian feast of literature, and humble their author by the claim of fraternity."

Unfortunately, Mr. Benton could not look with such tranquil philosophy on these things, as Sterne* did, and the world lost for ever the benefit of his meditations. His best and most honourable "works," however, were such as could not well be communicated to the world, in substance, nor could the world give them a tribute meet for their desert. One of these I was about to allude to, when interrupted by this digression.

I arrived at the house before any of the company were assembled. Soon after I had reached the drawing-room, a venerable but most cheerful-looking man, whom I knew at once to be an ecclesiastic, entered, and with an uncertain step, something between a trip and a totter, made his way to the host and bowed with entire simplicity, but with the air of a man perfectly accustomed to the great world. He was short in stature and his feet were the smallest I ever saw; his person was firm, and face unwrinkled, although to judge by his total baldness, "his eightieth year was nigh." His figure was a good deal bent, but apparently more from study than age; and his head generally rested on his breast, but was very frequently thrown up with a mild impatience, or forward with a kind of restless nod. He had a habit of drawing in the air between his teeth every few moments with a curious noise; an action which he incessantly displayed when another was speaking, together with many other of the innumerable tricks of a nervous man. Mr. Benton named him to me as Dr. Gauden.

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Sir," growled the doctor, with great urbanity, mumbling and biting his words as he spoke, "I'm very happy to make your acquaintance. I knew your grandfather very well, very well, indeed; poor man," throwing up his head and muttering almost to himself, "ah! ah! so it is! dead and gone!" then turning his back on me and limping off to a chair, he continued soliloquising with an

* "As we rode along the valley," says Sterne in one of his letters from France, "we saw a herd of asses on the top of one of the mountains. How they viewed and reviewed us !"

alternate nod and toss of the head: "ah! as Varro says, ⚫ vetustas non pauca depravat, multa tollit. Quem puerum vidisti formosum nunc vides deformem senectu. Tertium seculum non vidit eum hominum, quem vidit primum.'

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Dr. Gauden had been educated for the Catholic priesthood at one of the old colleges of France, which have formed for many years the noble nursing-mothers of the Romish clergy, of protestant countries. There he had been thoroughly imbued with ancient lore, and taught to know the ancient writers and the fathers as familiarly as the divines and classics of his native tongue. When, in later years, he departed from the church of his fathers, he took with him all the tastes and habits which he had formed in its bosom; and though becoming an active Protestant clergyman, "the scent of the cloister had clung to him still."

Testa recens

Quo semel est imbuta, diu servabit odorem.

He lived entirely among the old, illustrious authors; for modern books, he said, only repeated one another. He fed his mind upon the golden pages of Tertullian and Chrysostom, of Cicero and Plato, for it was the aliment to which it had been accustomed. His memory was "rich with the spoils of time;" and his conversation abounded with choice fragments of Pagan and Christian eloquence. His quotations had nothing of pedantic in their frequency, but seemed to be the natural overflowing of a full mind. If he wove into his common discourse, a "thread or two drawn from the coat of an apostle," or gave his hearers "a smack of Augustin or a sprig of Basil," all knew that the display was not an exhibition of vanity: ignorance was not alarmed, and taste was not offended.

A few minutes after, Mr. Rolle entered the room; a man of singularly feeble and delicate frame, and a countenance full of feeling and poetry; a vague, uncertain smile played constantly about his mouth indicating one whose thoughts mostly floated in some inner sphere of sentiment and rarely appreciated the reality of the real things around him; an impression which was assisted by the dreamy stare of his large, moist, gray eye. He en